Host
by The Magnificent Kiwi
Summary: Her mind was her own. Until it was not. Post-RE5. C/J
1. Prologue

**AN** - Hello! It has been a while. This last year has been all different kinds of crazy. My life has completely changed, flipped 180, all those clichés. Health issues got better then worse, life got crazy, then crazier, then off the scale. I don't know where the time went, let alone my motivation to write. But I want to address old ideas and writing was always therapeutic and fun and I can't imagine leaving it for good.  
This is an idea I had a while ago, and I thought that it was a good one to come back to. I am not doing my usual fare of planning the whole story out beforehand. I know where I want it to go, and I am just going with the flow. The old technique wasn't working so let's hope that this helps with the motivation! Life is still crazy so I may not be able to update as frequently as I used to but considering that I would update weekly at times in the past, there should hopefully not be a long wait between chapters! I am hoping for once a month at least, depending on the length of the chapters. Initial chapters may be shorter than later chapters.  
Rating M to be safe. Genre is Horror/Thriller/Drama/Adventure - I think! I am really no good with categorising.

* * *

**Host**

_**Prologue**_

_**April 7, 2009. 11:52pm. Saint Anne's Hospital, VA.**_

Her world was one of bone and ash. A life stripped to the bare foundations, nothing left to touch or taste. And there were monsters. Sometimes they spoke to her, sometimes they just watched. Sometimes they took on the form of memories, of people she once knew. They almost fooled her at times. The faces were the same, the voices too. But the eyes...the eyes pitied her.

They were alone in the reception area, save for the staff that attended to them. This did not seem to be the place for visitors. Decoration was kept to a bare minimum, the only pictures adorning the walls those typical of a medical centre; calming scenes, as clichéd as they were dull. And the rain beat down outside, as though it had not taken respite from the night before.

**Name of Patient: **Jill Valentine

**DoB:** 12/29/1974

**Date of Admission:** 4/7/2009

**Period of Committal: **Indeterminate - suggested review every three (3) months.

There was more; pages detailing suspected conditions, her medical history...the police report. It was not that it pained her to read it all, more that she could not find it in her to care. Chris did not care enough, so why should she? He barely looked at her as he inked his name at the bottom of the admission form, medical power of attorney she had granted him years ago abused to its full extent.

'Don't blame him,' a voice reminded her. She was no longer sure if it was that of her own thoughts or of another entity, be it sinister or benign. 'They'd have forced you here either way. At least he has control now, at least it was by his hand, not some corrupt judge.'

Even so, the casual flick of the pen carved welts into a tender part of her.

If only she cared enough to shed tears. Maybe then he would know.

"This is not a prison, Jill," said the doctor before her. Hendricks? Was that her name? "We are here to help you, not to punish you."

Jill looked to her former partner, meekly, as though he did not deserve her attention. Guilt threatened to swarm her, but she pushed it aside. She had so little control these days it was wise to grasp it while she could.

Chris turned to her in the end, eyes everywhere but hers. She could hear the words on the tip of his tongue, could feel them as they tore her to pieces. But he said nothing, not until he pulled her into him in a forced display of affection.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. But not for this, not for allowing her to taste freedom and then signing it away as though he had not fought so hard to secure it.

"You'll visit, right?" she asked, frightened.

He nodded, but he did not answer.

* * *

**_March 27, 2009._**

It was a headache that painkillers could not tempt away. It seemed rooted into her cerebrum, tendrils nestling in every fold of her brain. The doctors had claimed that it was a symptom of withdrawal; a side-effect of spending so long dependent on a mind-controlling substance. Jill just wanted her life back, not to be curled in bed all day, wishing that the pain would simply fade into nothing.

She had begun to find it strange how it always subsided when he was around. His presence was medicinal, granting her clarity of mind that seemed almost impossible to attain in his absence. So he let her lie with him, let her share his bed and curl up against him on the sofa. She pretended that she despised the dependence, but she was sure that he had noticed how she never pulled away, how she moved in closer even as she complained.

The bed became hard and unwelcoming after her fourth hour of laying in it. The voices, wherever they stemmed from, had no consideration for her plight, but the pain began to ease as midday approached.

"How are you feeling?"

Chris asked the same question every day. The answer never changed, but her reply did.

"Better." For once, there was truth in her response. "No thanks to your guests."

He glanced around, spoon halfway to his mouth.

"Guests?"

He was alone, as she surmised he had been since he woke. Pyjamas that were perhaps past their best were all that clothed him, and his feet curled beneath him on the sofa as they rarely did when entertaining guests.

"The TV," she muttered absently. "I could hear it in the bedroom."

An apology was offered, and he rearranged cushions to make a space for her at his side.

At times, she found his apartment too familiar. It intruded on her senses, instilled in her the belief that she did not belong here, not anymore. She missed her own apartment, missed her own bed. They were long gone now, belonged to some stranger. She had nothing but memories and the posessions her friends had pushed into storage following her 'death'. She had yet to find the energy to sort through them. First, there was the issue of finding a suitable place to rent.

_"And taking care of yourself."_

"I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," she groaned. Not this argument again.

Chris coughed as he finished off his cereal.

"I never disputed that."

She cast a glare towards him; a warning more than anything else. Rarely did she find the energy to argue, and he seemed to prefer to avoid any direct talk of the lingering effects of her captivity, perhaps out of fear that he would provoke her into some state from which she could not be talked out of.

And they were both happy to leave it that way.

* * *

_**April 8, 2009. 12:40am.**_

The apartment was empty when he returned home. The hospital had turned him away, had assured him that all was well before reminding him of the designated visiting hours. It was in his nature to worry, and worry he did.

The wet footprints had dried, no evidence that they had ever been there. There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to suggest that his world had not collapsed in on itself that very day.

Chris dropped his jacket onto the arm of the sofa before lowering himself into his usual spot on the cushions. A familiar reflection stared back at him through the screen of the television.

This was all too familiar.

Things were supposed to be different. Hope had promised him as much. It had whispered that all would be well when she was back in his life. And it was, for a while.

Jill Valentine had been his friend for more years than he cared to remember. She was routine, was a fixture so permanent that he often wondered just what his life had been like before they met. She was his best friend, his partner, his _soulmate_. Part of him had perhaps even loved her.

Perhaps? There was no doubt about it. Loving her was the only thing he was sure of these days. He was not quite sure when it happened, or how, or even why. As the years passed, each of these questions became more and more irrelevant. Until she was taken from him. Then there were more whens, more hows, more whys. When would the pain fade? How was he supposed to fight without her? Why did she think his life was so much more valuable than hers?

And then he found her. He found her, and she was alive. He saved her, brought her home. She thanked him, turned to him for comfort as she battled demons that she refused to name.

And then...

Chris Redfield was stupid. Stupid to ever think that he could help her. Part of him did not want to believe that she had been compromised, that this was a weakness that she could not hide, could not compensate for.

Dizziness overcame him as he stood suddenly upright. His hands shook, chest tight. With purpose, he allowed weak legs to carry him to the kitchen, weaker arms to reach into the refrigerator for a chilled beer.

A crimson echo played upon the whites of the door as it closed. A heavy heart sank to a sick stomach, the moist bottle slipped from his grasp.

Blood remained against the floor tiles, untouched.

A trembling hand raised to parted lips. And for the first time in a year, Chris Redfield cried.

* * *

_**April 1, 2009.**_

She brushed her teeth for one hour that morning. At least, that was the time it took to bring the brush to her mouth and encourage any sort of movement. Every day, she became increasingly more lethargic. Sometimes, she would lay in bed for most of the day, sometimes crying, sometimes staring off into space. Sometimes, he could encourage her to join him in a shopping trip or a walk through the park, but quite often her behaviour would necessitate an early return home.

It was not often that her outbursts manifested. At least, they had decreased in frequency, if not severity. He still bore bruises of her last assault; an incident in which he had been forced to physically restrain her lest she leave his apartment and care. She had protested, vehemently. She had claimed that he was trying to hurt her, that he was 'working with him'. He rarely questioned her words. It was better not to. Eventually she would scream and cry it all out, and return to a state of near catatonia.

Acute Stress Disorder was what the doctor had called it, with the expectation of upgrading the diagnosis to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after the first month. He had experienced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder himself, after the assignment that had taken her from him. He was sure that this was not how it had presented.

Two hours had passed since her last episode. A quiet conversation with herself that he politely ignored, an argument that he attempted to intervene in, and a violent outburst that left them both bruised.

She sat on the sofa after, knees pulled up to her chest. Her shoulders shook with every inhalation of breath, tears choking frightened words.

"I'm sorry," Jill said. Her eyes did not meet his, could barely remain open. "The pills aren't working. I'm not sleeping; I knew this would reach a crescendo eventually."

It reached a crescendo almost every day now.

"You're tired," Chris reasoned. "You are tired and your body and mind are recovering from massive trauma. This is only natural. Once the drug is out of your system, once the physical effects start to wind down...you'll see a difference."

They were the doctor's words, not his. He wasn't even sure if he truly believed them anymore, but he knew that he had to, for her sake and for his. Because when this was all over she _would_ be better, and things would go back to the way they were. They would argue playfully the way they used to, she would drive him crazy and he her. And in the midst of arguments, he would catch her eye and they would both smile, would laugh and embrace in a manner that was perhaps a shade inappropriate for 'just friends'.

And he would spend that sleepless night wishing that she was beside him, that he could reach out and touch the warmth of her skin and know that she was here, and she was his.

Claire said that his emotions clouded his judgement where Jill was concerned. Rebecca agreed. Barry too. In fact, he did not think that he had found a single ally in his insistence to the contrary.

"You think I'm crazy."

It was not a question.

"You think you can read my mind," was his reply.

She sighed, sowing the seeds of another argument, another episode, and another struggle.

"Of course I think you're crazy," he said, jumping in before it could escalate. "You threw yourself out of a God damn window. To save my rotten ass."

Quiet laughter spilled from her lips, and it brought a smile to his. It was a sound he would never tire of hearing, and it sounded even sweeter in the midst of her troubles.

"And you told me to leave you, thinking I'd be okay with it."

"I didn't think for one minute that you'd be okay with it," she admitted. "But I knew you'd do the right thing. That's part of 'us'...doing things we don't want to, because we have to."

"Yes."

The momentary silence that fell upon her was deep enough to convey her understanding. She wasn't happy that he had turned her own words on herself - he saw it in the way she squirmed, and the way she tried to hide it - but she grudgingly accepted them. It was progress; perhaps not a lot, but a little was enough for now.

* * *

**April 8, 2009. 12:42am.**

They led her to a white room, to white sheets and less furniture than she had possessed during her early days in Raccoon City. Nothing sharp, nothing dangerous. Just the clinical feeling that she was back in chains.

"Someone will be along to see you in the morning," Dr. Hendricks said as she lingered in the doorway. "If there is anything you need, just press the call button. Breakfast is between seven and ten, so try and get some rest."

Rest. The thought seemed comical. She knew what lurked on the other side of consciousness. Even so, it was only marginally more frightening that what awaited her during the day.

"You will be glad to know that the police have closed the case," the doctor said. "Nobody is pressing charges, so there is nothing for you to worry about."

Jill understood that her words were meant to be comforting, but she could offer little more than a grunt in reply. Even as the door locked behind her, she remained on the spot, clutching the spare clothes she had been allowed to bring. They were all that she owned now, perhaps all that she ever would.

She begged tears to fall, begged voices to mock her, visions to torment. Nothing. Just white, just silence, and the darkness that encircled her.

Unsteady legs brought her to the bed, which proved to be a lot softer than she had anticipated. The sheets were warm and clean, the pillow fluffy, the light switch within easy reach. She barely registered changing out of her rain-soaked sweatpants and into fresh pyjamas.

The stillness that met her beneath the sheets was frightening. There was no warm bed for her to crawl into here, no comfort to curl into as he slept. She would never feel that again. How could she? She had seen the way he looked at her, remembered the expression in those eyes. After what she had done, how could she ever be forgiven?

And so, she waited for sleep to come, half knowing that it wouldn't, half wishing it would be the kind to never end.

* * *

**April 7, 2009. 7:42pm.**

The knife carved sluggishly through vegetable after vegetable. She tried to be careful, was sure that he noticed. Every now and then, he would check on her, as though he did not trust her to hold such a sharp instrument. But his vigilance ended when his sister arrived, and embraces were exchanged between all three.

Claire had always been a good friend to Jill. They bonded through the most beautiful of similarities: a mutual love of teasing Chris mercilessly. In the days following the Kijuju incident, the younger Redfield sibling had been a common visitor to the apartment Jill had learned to call at least a temporary home. Her concern was evident in a startling way at times, sometimes grating but always appreciated.

Even so, Jill had no time for her today. Her mind spun horrendously, flickers of light in her periphery threatening to distract her just enough to misplace her grip and perhaps lose the tip of a finger. The last thing that she wanted to do was to give Chris another reason not to trust her.

_"Why should he trust you? You're a monster."_

"Shut up," she muttered. She could feel the pressure building within her temples, willed it back with great effort.

_"Tyrant."_

"So Rebecca's birthday is coming up." Claire's voice cut through the taunting tone, distracted her. "I was thinking maybe we could throw her a party? It has been so long since we all got together."

"Sure," Chris agreed. "I'm sure the Burtons would love the excuse to visit."

The conversation was too normal. The voice laughed, sneered...it mocked.

_"You think any of this is real?"_

La la la.

"Oh, do you have those DVDS?" Claire's voice, breaking through again.

Chris left; light followed him into the bedroom.

_"You're still there. In that cell. In those chains. You really think this is real? That's cute."_

Jill's fingers curled into fists, the handle of the knife digging into her palm. But the pain barely registered, did not chase away the encroaching darkness. Tiles cracked, lights flickered. Laughter filled her ears.

_**"You do what I tell you."** _It was a different voice this time. _His_ voice. **_"You do nothing without my permission. Do you understand?"_**

Her surroundings were familiar now. The way they moved was not.

Icy fingers played up her arm, breath close to her ear.

_**"Take this vial to the village. Find a lone villager, inject it and leave once you are sure infection has been successful. Irving will accompany you."**_

The room spun, though the colours were too dark to see. Everything whirled together, pressure threatening to crack bones beneath her skin.

_**"And Jill? Wear the mask, and the cloak. Don't let anyone see your face."**_

A cry ripped loose from her chest and she stumbled back, arms drawing close to her body. Tendrils of black ooze squirmed through every crevice, every gap in the kitchen's fittings. They covered every surface, reached out towards her.

_**"Jill."**_

The voice drew closer.

_**"Jill."**_

She could almost smell its breath.

_"Jill."_

She gripped the knife. She wouldn't be a victim this time, wouldn't cower before it. If it wanted her, it wasn't going to get her without a fight.

"Jill!"

Hands grabbed her and she moved, thrusting the knife before her. It hit true, slicing cleanly through flesh.

Darkness faded, light returned. She stood in a kitchen once again, the mouth-watering scent of food around her. No ooze, no voice, no terror.

Save for that in the blue eyes that met hers.

Jill's eyes dropped, hand falling from the hilt of the blade. Claire did not move, did not even bleed. She just stood there, waited until the crimson droplets appeared, slowly spotting against her shirt.

There was a ringing in Jill's ears. Time seemed to stand still. She could not say a word, could barely even breathe. She did not move at all until Chris's voice hit her, until he caught his sister as she fell, silent still.

"Claire! Claire..." Then, darker eyes met hers. It was not fear that filled them. Not even anger. "What did you do? The hell did you do?"

She didn't think. She ran. And she did not stop running.

The way it had always been.

**AN - Please review :)**


	2. Ripping Wings off of Butterflies

**AN - **Apologies for the delay - I meant to have this up sooner! There will be a little delay before the next chapter as I am going away over new year so won't be able to write for a couple of weeks, but I am hoping to have it up by the end of January. A huge thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the first chapter - as always, I really appreciate your support and feedback. I hope the rest of this story doesn't disappoint!

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**Host**

_**Chapter One - **Ripping Wings off of Butterflies_

He should have known the white horse would not always hold his weight. But what else did a hero ride? He had already saved the day; the bad guy was dead, the girl was safe, and the world could continue turning for now. Wasn't that how fairytales ended? Flying off into the sunset, knowing that it rose on a new day, one that promised to be better.

Maybe that was why fairytales always ended there. Who wanted to hear what happens next? The bad guy reaching out from beyond the grave, the girl shattered from trauma. And the hero? He could only watch as the world crumbled around him, wondering if it had ever truly been saved at all.

There were no sirens, though he doubted that anyone would hear them, so fierce was the rain. The streets were empty, pedestrians having run for cover. But he remained, wondering exactly where he was going or what he was looking for.

Or who.

It would be better if it were him. If the police found her, they would not be so gentle, would not understand her fragile state. She would lash out, and a bad situation would turn dire.

He could not find it in him to laugh at the ridiculousness of the thought; the situation couldn't possibly be much worse.

Emotion seemed to beat against his senses, never truly touching them. It chilled him in a way the rain did not. Images of his sister flashed through his mind. He could almost still see the blood he had washed from his hands. And his words, toxic for what they did not say. He had looked into the eyes of both girls, and it was not those closest to him that had held the most fear.

Jill's coat remained by the door, untouched. Wherever she was, she would be cold and wet and very possibly afraid. No part of him felt glad for this fact. Whatever he felt in that moment, whatever emotion spilled towards her, it was not cruelty.

The park found its way to him through instinct. He had not truly known where to look, had partly not cared. He was glad for the fresh air, for the chance to clear his head. Not that it was working.

It was empty this time of night, but that never stopped her. She always liked the peace and quiet, even prior to her captivity.

And it was there that he found her, silent on a weathered bench. She did not see him - or if she did, she did not let it show. No coat shielded pale skin, no shoes sheltered her feet. But she did not even shiver, too far in a daze she appeared to be.

Part of him wanted to turn away. Part of him remembered the stretcher that carried his sister away, remembered the blood that now stained his kitchen towels. After what she had done, why did she deserve comfort? Why did she deserve his help?

But a deeper part of him, one rooted to the core of who he was, and who she was to him, spurred him forward, brought him before her with uneasy sympathy.

She blinked, breath catching in her throat.

"Is she okay?"

She spoke before he could breathe. She did not look at him.

"She's on her way to hospital. They said she should be just fine."

Silence. They could hear every raindrop.

"I'm so sorry."

He said nothing.

"What have I done?"

* * *

**April 28, 2009. St. Anne's Hospital, VA.**

The food was the same every day. The colours and the textures changed, but the taste remained the same bland old fare. Perhaps it was her own taste buds that had given up? She ate it anyway, choked it down with the fruit juice of the day, ready for medication that was served shortly after. Anti-psychotics with a dose of anti-anxiety medication. The usual for a paranoid schizophrenic. Or so she assumed.

"My sister sneaked some candy in one time."

Jill glanced up from her empty glass, meeting the eyes of Veronica, a young patient she often found herself spending time with these days.

"I thought maybe this was my treatment," Veronica sighed. "You know, make me crave fatty foods. What I wouldn't give for something with a little taste. Any taste will do. Doesn't particularly have to be a good one."

The young girl had been resident at the hospital for a little longer than Jill. A recovering anorexic who found herself victim to distrusting parents. From her account of events, it seemed that they would rather have pawned her off on the medical services rather than actively help her themselves. Such was the story for many patients at St. Anne's - they simply had nowhere to go, nobody to care for them. It was a residential community for individuals suffering from various degrees of cognitive and emotional 'disturbances'. Completely voluntary for most, of course, though checking out was evidently a lot more difficult than checking in.

"It's better than nothing," Jill said. At the very least, it was better than she was offered in Africa. "But I'm starting to think the medication is dulling my senses."

"That's because you're a schizo. They don't want you spazzing out and making a scene. Better to keep you docile." These words came from Lisa, a brunette only slightly younger than Jill. St. Anne's was not an asylum, and she was assured that they did not admit the criminally insane. Sometimes, Jill considered Lisa a striking argument against this insistance. A sorry case of the state washing their hands of her after evictions from several half-way houses. Despite her often crass and insensitive personality, Jill felt for her. Borderline Personality Disorder was the highlight of her long list of issues, and at times it presented so severe that she struggled to maintain any interpersonal relationships. Put simply, she lived at the hospital because nobody else wanted to deal with her. In all likelihood, she would never truly leave. She was what the others referred to as a 'lifer'.

"You shouldn't use that word," Veronica argued. She poked at the peas that remained on her plate, as though daring herself to eat them. They were so dry and tasteless that they held very little appeal to starved senses, let alone over-sated ones.

Lisa argued back as Jill allowed her mind to wander. The truth was that her diagnosis meant very little to her. She was aware of the stigma of schizophrenia, aware that in all likelihood she would never get better. But her mind had adjusted to a certain lack of control. The P30 had desensitized her, allowed her to sit back and let her brain malfunction as it pleased without truly caring.

Until she dug a little deeper and uncovered that which had crusted over, wanting to stay hidden.

Arguments faded into nothing as they cleared their trays and made their way to the large common area; the 'Rec. Room' that became a somewhat sad hangout for the majority of residents when the weather did not permit wandering the gardens. There was little else to do between treatment and therapy sessions other than watch television and attempt to socialise. Jill spent a fair amount of time in the gym, but her level of performance soon began to disturb her. She had always taken care of herself; being in good shape simply made her job easier and safer. Even so, this was not a level of fitness that she had achieved by sheer willpower. It had been forced upon her for purposes far less honourable than her former muscle.

Visitors trickled through, though none came for her. They never did. Three weeks and not a single "How are you doing?". Perhaps they had gotten so used to her not being around that it was easy to forget that she was not dead after all.

At least, that was what she chose to believe. It was the easier theory to accept.

* * *

It was just after noon when Claire visited. Chris did not even bother to protest her leaving her apartment; he knew that it was futile to argue with his sister.

"I'm starting to remember why I hate taking sick days," she complained as he helped her out of her jacket. "I feel so useless."

"It's better than making yourself worse."

She laughed quietly to herself.

"I'm fine. No major organs, no major arteries. This has to be the cleanest, most stress-free injury I have sustained since Raccoon City."

A firm hand settled on her abdomen, seemingly by instinct. Her words held truth; she had been extremely lucky, had seen a rather short stay in the hospital before being prescribed bed rest at home.

It was strange how much had changed in three weeks. Even his apartment had seen a reshuffling of furniture and effects. It was merely a way to keep his mind occupied, lest it drift to unwanted subjects.

"How's Jill?"

An all too familiar lump rose to his throat. Her name had become somewhat of a forbidden word, her existence taboo. He liked to pretend sometimes that it felta s though she had not returned, but a striking pain, a blistering burn in his chest, always wanted to know who he was trying to fool.

Claire swore beneath her breath. She always was far too skilled at reading his silences.

"You haven't seen her, have you?"

It was not as simple as her tone had suggested. It never was.

"I tried to."

"And what? They turned you away?"

He had parked before the hospital on many occasions, had even exited his car a time or two. But he always stalled when it came to walking inside, to seeing her. Sometimes he could rationalise his actions. Most of the time he could not.

"I wish it was as simple as just walking in there," he said. "But this is Jill..._our_ Jill."

And it was not. The words he did not speak.

Claire's silence was painful. She swallowed, lowering herself carefully onto the sofa, waiting for him to join her. Pale skin seemed paler in recovery. She had lost a little weight, tried not to grimace in discomfort as she moved.

Guilt weighed upon him, perhaps more than it should have. It was his fault, all of it. If he had not believed that he could help Jill, if he had sought help rather than try to shield her...then perhaps none of this would have happened.

"She is suffering," Claire said. "More than I am. This is just a flesh wound; she is dealing with something much darker, much deeper. She needs her friends. She needs you."

Heat flashed beneath his skin. Anger, building.

"She never needed me," he snapped, barely restraining a snarl. "Not once. It was always me that needed her. And look where that got us. I needed her here, so much that I ignored all the signs and..."

He choked on the thought, a trembling hand rising to his hair. Still a touchy subject.

"I wanted to believe that she was okay, so much that I became ignorant. It wasn't Jill that I found in Africa. I wanted to believe that it was, but...the Jill I knew and loved died two years ago."

"You think she deserves that?" Her response was too sudden, too instinctive. He hated that. It always meant that she was right. "You think she would give up on you so easily if your roles were reversed? For two years she was tortured and manipulated. You find her and you expect her to be the same person? And you give up on her when you see her scars?"

But they were not scars. They were open, festering wounds. He did not know how to close them, did not even know how to treat them. The best that he could do was hold them together and hope that they would not bleed through. But they would. They always would.

Jill had always been so strong. He was always the first to cry, she the one to tell him to snap out of it. It was his hands that trembled that night in 1998, not hers. It was his tears that followed Forest's demise, his restlessness that brought them to spend most of the following nights together, partners in insomnia. And when the nightmares came, it was she who was there when he woke from his. He did not know how to be the strong one.

The truth was that he could not see her like this. It was better to pretend that she was gone than to admit that she was here in a thousand different pieces. And for that, he was ashamed.

* * *

Jill waited in the day room as visiting hours trickled past. The other patients filed in and out, herself and Lisa seemingly the only permanent fixtures. High security patients rarely received visitors. It was not that they were forbidden, more that those that resided on their wing tended to have been abandoned by those around them. Family washed their hands, social services preferred not to deal with them...sometimes even the law dropped them into the facility and seemed to forget that they existed.

"Welcome to MaxSec," Lisa muttered bitterly, raising a glass of water in a somewhat morbid toast. "When society decides that you just ain't worth its time."

"You never have visitors?"

"Sometimes. I prefer it when I don't. My family...they aren't the easiest people to deal with. I prefer the other loons. No offence."

Jill chuckled. As the days passed, she found the word more and more appropriate when describing herself. Strangely, her episodes had not been so pronounced since her arrival, though it came at the cost of her senses, dulled to almost uncomfortable levels. She felt like a drone some days, existing in a world she was unable to feel. Was this how it was to be for the rest of her life? Out of one form of captivity and into another?

"At least we know what to expect with one another," she agreed.

"Speak for yourself," Lisa said with a smile. "You surprise me every day."

"How so?"

Lisa's brow furrowed, and she leaned back in her plastic chair. Long mousey brown hair fell around her shoulders, brown eyes fixed on Jill's blue.

"I've known a lot of schizo's. Sometimes you fit the bill, sometimes you don't. It's like there's two of you in there. Maybe three. Sometimes I wonder why you're here, others I think you're another lifer...like me."

Brutal honesty. What she was known for.

Jill sighed, because there were elements of truth in her words. Sometimes, she felt as though there were multiple conflicting personalities within her, each hating the other, each wanting dominance...and one just wanting to be free.

Before a reply became known to her, one of the orderlies approached their quiet table.

"Jill," he said carefully. "You have a visitor."

* * *

Hope was a dangerous emotion to have. Fiona told her so once, bleary-eyed, moments before she disappeared for the better part of a week. But Fiona was bipolar; when she returned from her self-imposed bedrest, in the clutches of mania, she had laughed it off, called it ridiculous. Jill did not see it as such. Every shred of hope she had seen in her life had ultimately only led to heartache.

Even so, it was with quick steps that she returned to her room, almost throwing the door open before her.

And once again, hope had failed her.

"Jill." Leon's voice was soft, but not wary. She liked that. Too many people were afraid of her these days.

Tears welled in her eyes, though she was unsure from where they stemmed. Relief washed over her, disguising a dull pain that only seemed to grow as each day passed. Someone had cared enough to come, to check that she was still alive, if only barely.

But it was not the someone she wanted to see with a desperation that had begun to hurt.

She found herself in her visitor's arms regardless, reassured by the pressure he applied.

"Hey," he soothed. "You know crying makes me uncomfortable."

An uncertain chuckle escaped her throat.

"Can't say I ever got that."

"It does when the tears are yours," he laughed, hand moving gently against her back. "It always feels like the world is about to end."

Jill pulled back slowly, drying what little had escaped down her cheeks. It had always been her job to remain the strong one. It had always been so easy. What had changed?

"You look terrible."

She laughed at his honesty; the first genuine smile she had found since her committal.

"It's hard to care about appearances when you're rotting away on the inside."

It was not a sentence she had intended to speak aloud, but sometimes she found that her thoughts manifested as words without much thought. It was a new trait, one that was beginning to make her feel a little uncomfortable. Was it the result of a thousand shattered mental walls, a symptom of psychosis, a reaction to the medication, or was she simply losing what little was left of her mind?

Leon didn't seem to know what to say, so she offered a smile that said she was okay with that.

"How are you doing?" he wanted to know. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I have been busy, but that doesn't feel like an adequate excuse."

"That's okay. At least you came. That's more than I can say for some people."

A humourless smile appeared on his lips. Perhaps they all knew. Perhaps that was why the others chose to keep their distance too; loyalty to the friend they had not believed to be dead for so long.

"He cares about you, you know?"

"He did. I understand; I mean, it's just easier this way. He started to move on, then I came back and... It's easier to pretend that I didn't coma back at all."

Leon perched himself on the edge of her bed, expression betraying the calm he exuded. He was always good with these talks, just never comfortable.

"Chris never moved on," he said. "I don't think any of us truly did. I think he's afraid."

"Of me?"

He sighed. 'That's not what I meant'. But it was. Perhaps he simply didn't know how to word it in a way that would not offend her. Truth be told, nothing could offend her right then. There were medical documents to prove her insanity. Anything implied would hardly be a vicious lie.

"Of losing you again."

Giving her up was easier. Of course, she never vocalised this belief. It would only lead to something uncomfortable and quite frankly she did not have the energy to deal with that. The medication trimmed the edges off her senses, brought a fog of lethargy to her world. Perhaps it was a small mercy that she found it difficult to truly care about much these days.

"You didn't come just to check up on me, did you?" A welcomed change of subject.

Leon chuckled.

"No, I didn't," he admitted. "I thought you would like to know what has been going on outside these walls."

Kijuju. He didn't have to say it. She knew that there would be an investigation into the outbreak, into the facility, and inevitably into what she had done.

"They've started?"

He nodded, motioning for her to join him on the bed, which she did cautiously.

"It's big," he said. "It could take weeks, or months...even years. But Tricell have been heavily implicated. The GPC has ordered investigations into all of its members, and the BSAA is leading the Kijuju effort; a joint venture between the West African and North American branches. Chris is heading up the NA investigation, so don't take it too personally if you don't hear from him for a while; I don't envy the task laid before him."

Something twisted inside her, and she was suprised to find that it was not unpleasant. Chris hated paperwork, he hated the prelimary aspects of the cases they took on. For him to willingly take on a task that would likely have him confined to a desk for the forseeable future...

'He's doing it to protect you. The closer he is to the investigation, the more he will know and the more control he will have.'

If only it was so easy to believe.

"Obviously, I can't disclose too much, but..."

"This could mean the end for Tricell."

"Not could. Will. There is no way they will survive this. But...sooner or later you are going to get dragged into this. If not physically, then at least by name."

Bile rose to her throat. Would they haul her in for more testing? Would they put her on trial, dissecting every aspect of what she had endured? She did not have the strength for that.

"Don't worry," Leon assured her, squeezing her knee with a steady hand. "There is enough evidence to prove your innocence. But...Umbrella splintered in the wake of their demise. The same will happen to Tricell. We expect them to put up a fight, and you know what that means for corporations like Tricell. Your are as much evidence as you are a witness. I don't mean to sound unkind, but that's how the GPC see it and it is how the bad guys will too...you are safer here for now."

Stay in the loony bin, keep your head down. How much use would she be to anyone in her current state anyway?

* * *

Meds were brought around early that evening. It was movie night, and many of the other patients were known for dozing off halfway through whatever riveting visual feast the powers that be had selected for them. Jill just wanted to go to bed, to curl up beneath the sheets and let the world dissolve around her. Alas, she knew that her avoidance was being taken as anti-social behaviour and if she ever wanted to get out of this hole she had to play along and indulge in group activities.

Fiona was enduring another manic phase, so the trolley made its way around slowly. She seemed happy enough to take her own medication, but also seemed to want to take everyone else's too...a 'favour', she had claimed, as nobody liked to take what they were prescribed. Her moods were always more severe at the beginning. It would taper out soon enough.

"Here's to false happiness," Lisa sighed, raising her cup in another of her mock toasts.

"And false sanity," Jill agreed, raising her own.

She tipped the pills onto a flat palm, barely feeling the impact.

_"Don't take them," he taunted. "But if you develop an infection, don't expect me to treat it."_

_She did not even know what they were. Possibly antibiotics, but perhaps something more sinister. After all, one hand and both ankles remained strapped to the bed. Not that she was capable of moving far anyway. The pain had begun to subside a little, but the fact remained that she had broken far too many bones to even attempt escape. Add to that internal bleeding and one minute during which she had been clinically dead, and even she understood that for now she would have to play along._

_Reluctantly, she placed the pills into her mouth and reached for the glass of water, every nerve aflame as she stretched._

_"Good girl," Wesker praised as she swallowed, feeling every drop of water as it carried the offending items to her stomach._

Pain, behind her eyes. Her brain was alive, twisting and turning. She was sure that worms wiggled through the folds, that something pressed against her temples from the inside. A reverse lobotomy. Flashes of light, and the shadows within her cup sprang to life.

"Jill?"

The cup fell to the floor, pills skittering across the carpeted floor. They multiplied like cells, cracking audibly. And shadows surrounded her, illuminated eyes fixed on her, watching, judging.

"Jill!"

Something touched her arm, wound around it painfully. She glanced down, shrieked in shock as darkness wrapped itself around her limb, obscuring skin as it slithered to her shoulder.

"No, no, no!" she screamed. Then there were more, from every direction. She kicked, she screamed, and some broke free. Warm liquid splashed against her hand, something pressed against her chest, wrestling her to the floor.

"Let me go!"

But the more she struggled, the tighter they wound. Then, the darkness found her eyes. And all was silent.

* * *

The sounds came to her before the light. It was silvery and cold, piercing through the open curtains. She had never seen the moon in Africa. She had barely seen the sky, the sun not touching her skin for the better part of her internment.

She used to love the moonlight, used to sit on the balcony of their hotel room, bottle of beer in hand as all thoughts of the current assignment fell from conscious thought. It was peaceful. And he would always join her eventually with a beer of his own. And they would talk until the light turned orange. Sometimes she would make her own way to bed, sometimes she would wake on the balcony, next to him.

They were simpler days. Yet they were also the happiest of her life.

The moon here was not so soothing. Not when neither her wrists nor her ankles could move far from the bed.

"Welcome back, Jill."

She turned her head slowly, wary of the pain that continued to throb in her temples. Dr. Hendricks sat by the head of the bed, the on call nurse and another member of staff she did not recognise silent by the doorway.

"How long was I out?" It was instinct that asked the question.

"A couple of hours," the doctor said. Her voice was like balm to offended senses; perhaps it was a prerequisite for her position. "How are you feeling?"

Jill contemplated rattling off a list of her symptoms, but in the end settled for a sigh that seemed to explain all.

"You suffered a psychotic episode," Dr. Hendricks explained. "Considering that this was the first since your arrival, I want to try to understand what caused it."

"The pills," Jill said. She did not even need to think about it. "I...I just remembered...too much."

Dr. Hendricks hummed quietly.

"Another flashback?"

"I don't like the pills. I feel...less aware. It makes me think too much, makes me remember."

"You need to take the pills," said the nurse. Her voice was not so kind. It felt like sandpaper to her senses.

Inwardly, Jill scoffed. Sure. Weren't they supposed to prevent episodes such as these? They evidently weren't doing their job.

"Yes, I do," she agreed. But why? The words tumbled from her tongue, but they were not what she felt, not what she wanted to say. They did not quite carry the 'fuck you' her preferred words would have.

"You should sleep," Dr. Hendricks told her. "We can talk about this in our session tomorrow. I can give you a sedative if you like? Something to help you sleep?"

Jill shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to lose a little more control.

The nurse deftly removed the restraints that bound her.

"Don't move," she instructed. Jill remained perfectly still. "Okay, done. You can move. But don't think about leaving this room."

And suddenly, she did not. It would be futile, anyway. And what was there outside? She would be happier here, would be...

'What?' she asked her reasoning. Something felt uncomfortably familiar, but she could not quite place her finger on it.

As the others left she watched them until the door clicked behind them, lock sliding into place. All motivation to leave the bed had evaporated. She felt the desire to sleep, felt the war between body and mind.

In the moonlight, she lay still and silent, and ever so slightly afraid.

**AN - Please review :)**


	3. Things That Go Bump In The Night

**AN - **This turned out a lot longer than I had expected/intended, and I'm not completely satisfied with it but it is the best that I feel able to do right now. I'm not quite sure that I am happy with how the ending turned out, but then again I am rarely happy with anything that I write these days.  
Thank you again to everyone who reviewed - I am trynig to repy to as many as I can but I have been really busy lately so I apologise! But I do appreciate the feedback and support - it keeps me motivated! I am going to aim to have at least one chapter out per month from now on since it seems to be a good time frame, but there may be times where I don't quite manage it, just like there may be times when I get more than one chapter out per month! I am also trying to keep chapters reasonably short and manageable, mostly for this sake, but you know I do love to waffle!

* * *

**Host**

_**Chapter Two - **Things That Go Bump in the Night_

"I need you like a heart needs a beat, but it's nothing new."  
~One Republic~

**August 2006. [Location classified], Europe.**

The wine tasted a little sweeter with him. Perhaps it was not the wine at all, but the taste of his company. It touched every other sense, so why not?

Brief touches were scattered across friendly interaction, each one setting off a supernova of sparks beneath her skin. His was rough, worn through years of fighting for his life, quite often quite literally with his bare hands. Jill often wondered how she had escaped this weathering, but it was her intellect that had fought the majority of her battles. Though her skin remained pristine, her mind was not so lucky.

Flowery notes glided over over her taste buds, cool glass balancing between fingers.

Chris continued to talk, though about what she was not quite sure. She was hypnotized by his smile, by the echoes of laughter that shook his shoulders. It had been some time since she had seen him so happy.

They were here, on the eve of their resolution. Spencer was but a few miles away, and with him, Wesker's whereabouts. Soon, their personal war would be over.

But what then? They had been fighting for so long. Did they truly know what awaited them on the other side? Were they even capable to returning to it?

Her mind drifted to the beginning, to days and nights spent in hiding. And then Leon had appeared, had offered them a job leading an officially non-existent task force dedicated to tackling Umbrella on a more physical level. Their reputations had preceded them, apparently.

So many nights laying awake in an old military bunker. So many mealtimes spent eating whatever rations they were allotted that day. Umbrella wanted them dead; it was the only way to survive.

Even so, it had all proven too much eventually, even for her supposedly calm and collected mind.

He was the only one who had seen her tears. She had not even heard him enter her bedroom, had not even felt his presence until he was right beside her. Trembling hands had hastily wiped away the moisture beneath her eyes, but he had already seen her shame. Who would have thought? Jill Valentine, weak beneath it all.

But he had never seen it that way. He came to her silent and respectful, letting her know that comfort was there if she needed it. Him, the one person she had always been sure to remain strong before. The one person she never truly needed to.

To that day, she did not know how it had happened. Perhaps it was the scent upon his skin, or the warmth of his embrace. Perhaps it was the loneliness and the fear that brought her to find another warmth inside his mouth, and him to find yet another between her legs. She was not sure who had kissed who or who had touched who, who had pushed and who had tugged, only that she discovered another way in which he could be rough yet at the same time exceedingly gentle. There were bruises upon her skin for days, though they never hurt. The crescents upon his back faded quickly, and with them every sentiment of that night. They never spoke of it again. It existed only in the reshuffling of the boundaries between them, where an intimate embrace felt as natural as though it were only between friends. Somewhere down the line, they had begun to convince themselves that this was all they were. Friends.

Jill was not sure that a word existed to describe what they were to one another.

Moments passed before she realised that he was no longer speaking. She glanced up, and blue eyes met grey.

"You always do that," he said, voice laced with amusement. "Drift off when I'm talking."

"Sorry."

"No. It's...endearing."

He had probably never used that word in his life. And she had never heard it, not in a tone so sincere. It brought colour to her cheeks.

That smile almost killed her. It was one she had always imagined preceded a kiss, one that would steal her breath away. Alas, the kiss never came. It was never anything more than friendship between them, even after that one imperfect night.

She wondered how he would feel now. He was young back then, more boy than man. Muscle had matured, lines had settled in to his face. Even his eyes had changed, seemed to see the world differently. She wondered if they saw her the same. And the body that had kept her warm that night was littered with scars, both pink and white. He was perhaps more beautiful to her these days. But would he feel the same?

Shaking all such thought from her mind, she reached for the bottle to refill her glass. There was little point in dwelling on the 'what could have been's, especially when they were also 'what can never be's.

And at the end of the day, she would rather have Chris as her friend than as nothing at all.

* * *

**April 30, 2009. St. Anne's Hospital.**

"What's the deal with Amy?"

Dr. Hendricks sighed, placing her pen down in defeat.

"These sessions are to talk about you, Jill," she pointed out. "Not to discuss other patients."

Jill's gaze did not leave the doctor's. She already knew the layout of the room, could perhaps even draw it from memory. All its mahogany and smooth surfaces.

"I thought they were to discuss what is on my mind? Well, I am currently wondering how a depressed girl with no prior history of mental illness can suddenly develop schizophrenia."

It was a question that had plagued them all since Amy's admittance to MaxSec, after an episode in which she assaulted a member of staff who had only just begun to recover from the fat lip Jill had given him during her previous episode. In all honesty, she knew that he was lucky to have gotten away with such a minor injury.

"That is actually a question I have been asking myself," the doctor answered with another sigh. "But mental illness is never fair. Sometimes it can be predicted, sometimes it cannot. Take for instance yourself. A healthy thirty-four-year-old woman with no prior history of mental illness, and yet here you are."

Touché.

"It is my job to help you come to terms with your own illness, not to understand that of another patient."

Dr. Hendricks had the unnerving ability of painting every word on the tip of her patient's tongue with a startling redundancy. Had Jill not been that patient, she would perhaps have admired her for this.

"Tell me more about your nightmare."

With a sigh, Jill closed her eyes, both attempting to recall the details and shielding herself from them. Lucid dreams were a cruel twist of her current fate. Each one was as cruel as the last, and no less real to her in the moments it had her ensnared.

"You said that it was a memory?"

"Yes..." It was, and yet it was not. "At least, it... It was. I..."

Deep breaths. A pause, hoping that Dr. Hendricks would relent and allow her a sliver of peace.

No such luck.

"It was an assignment," she explained. "One of the first we faced with the BSAA. Chris and I were chasing a target across a cliff face, near the ocean. I was careless, I slipped, and... The rock was slippery - it had been raining. I could barely hold on. And he was there, he found me. And he just...looked at me. He looked at me with those eyes, and he... He walked away. And I fell."

The familiar scratch of pen on paper was absent.

"This was your dream?"

She nodded in response.

"Is it safe to say that this was not how the incident played out?"

"He didn't even look," Jill said, a smile tugging at her lips. "He saw me fall, and he was there, and he...he pulled me back up. Almost slipped and fell himself for trying."

The target had fled, but in that moment neither seemed to realise. He had clung to her a little too desperately before his hands began a clinical roam. Once it was determined that she had not been grievously injured, he had scolded her. But she had seen the worry in his eyes, that which his anger tried to conceal. It was the same worry she had seen in Africa, the same worry that had almost allowed Wesker's plan to succeed.

"Chris was your partner, correct?"

She nodded. In truth, it was a lot more complicated than that. The doctor would probably not have understood. Hell, she was not even sure that she fully understood the nature of their relationship.

"You care about him. A lot." It was not a question, nor a theory. It was a cold, hard, statement of fact. "His name has entered every one of our sessions."

"But this isn't about him," Jill reminded her. Her voice was a little too harsh, her tone a little too protective. The doctor picked up on this.

"I disagree. He obviously means a lot to you."

He did, once upon a time. In many ways, he still did. But she knew better than to believe that things could ever be the same, let alone better. She had stabbed his sister, had shattered every perception he ever had of her. How could he ever look at her the same way again? He couldn't even bare to look at her at all these days, hence his striking absence from her life.

"Do you have regrets?" she asked the doctor.

Hendricks caught her gaze for a few moments, seemed to decide whether or not it was appropriate to answer.

"I do," she said.

"We all do," Jill chuckled humourlessly. "I have so many I stopped counting years ago. But somewhere along the line, I realised that my regrets were what brought me to where I was, they made me who I was. Without them, I don't know where I would be, and I honestly don't wish to find out. I was content with my life, as traumatic as it has been. But never telling him how I felt when it was still appropriate...always finding an excuse or a reason why we shouldn't be together, why he should never know that I loved him so much I couldn't even conceive the idea of ever loving anyone else... Those are regrets that will haunt me forever."

* * *

Chris was buried beneath a mountain of paperwork. Literally. There were so many files, so many records, that he honestly did not know where to start with some of them. They remained sealed and boxed, but his desk would only hold so much.

There were medical reports pertaining to Jill's recovery, attached loosely to files detailing every aspect of her captivity that they were able to pull from the computers of the Kijuju facility. Some of the evidence was only too easy to retrieve; it was the only information that had been retrieved close to intact, and evidently had been intended for his eyes should the world not have ended. One last piece of torture from his old enemy. He had yet to find the guts to browse through it all; it should have come from her lips, not from the typed words of some stranger.

Then there were the blueprints of the facility, and the piles and piles of paper detailing its purpose, layout, and the countless bodies of kidnapped individuals that had been recovered.

He was grateful that the main bulk of information, that which detailed the majority of Wesker's research, was stored safely on encoded discs. Not that the information itself was not encoded; that which he possessed was only that which the BSAA specialists had succeeded in decoding so far.

It was too large a task, but he insisted on seeing every sliver of information that was available to them.

"Paperwork never struck me as your thing."

Was he so deep in a task he often claimed to hate so much that he had begun to hallucinate?

He had not seen Sheva Alomar since the assignment that had brought them together. He had no reason too; he was tied to the BSAA's North American branch, she to the West African division, and the clean-up surrounding the Kijuju facility had kept both her and Captain Stone busy.

"I really should start using that lock they installed, huh?" he said with a smile. "Strangers just keep walking into my office."

Sheva extended a hand, chuckling softly. Chris took it, shaking professionally as he gestured for her to take a seat at the opposite side of his desk.

"From that expression, I guess they didn't tell you I was coming, huh?" she asked.

Perhaps they had; he was not exactly the best listener these days. He had not checked his inbox in quite some time.

She looked as well as she did the day he met her. Of course, he had taken the brunt of the physical abuse during their assignment. But she was young, and he remembered all too well what it was like to be able to bounce back from trauma so quickly. With age, he found that it took a little more effort to stay in shape, and a little more bed rest after each assignment.

"So you didn't just miss me?"

Sheva smiled again.

"I knew they were sending someone over to help with the investigation," he told her. "Never crossed my mind that it could be you."

"They wanted me to stay, but when I heard about Jill, I pushed until they agreed to let me travel."

A chill settled into the previously stuffy room, raising goosebumps on his arms. There was a time when her name would warm every part of him, and his heart did not let him forget that.

"How is she?"

Shamefully, it was a question he could not answer. It was one he was too afraid of asking himself. And his silence elicited the same sigh that had come from his sister's lips.

"I thought the two of you were inseparable?"

"I thought it best to give her space," he said, concealing a truth rather than outright lying. "I was...angry. It wasn't fair to face her like that. It would only have made things worse."

He saw sympathy in her eyes, and she nodded slowly in agreement.

"I'm sure she misses you."

It was one statement, yet it carried so much meaning. 'Talk to her'. 'See her'. 'Comfort her'. 'Help her'.

It was true that in days of late he had missed her terribly, had come closer to visiting than he ever had. But something always stopped him. Fear, guilt...whatever it was, it always held him back, always whispered that it would be a bad idea.

"I was thinking about visiting tomorrow," he revealed. "If you like, you could come with me?"

Sheva smiled.

"I take it that this will be your first time...so I think it will be better if you go alone."

His stomach twisted, but he nodded. Jill had always told him to face his fears, whatever that would mean. She had helped him pull through the trauma of the mansion incident simply by being herself; strong and dependable. Now she was the one suffering, she was the one who needed help. It was not fair that he let his own shortcomings deny her this, whatever he felt.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I think so too."

* * *

Jill awoke in a humid sweat from a dreamless sleep. The clock display flashed a frustrating reminder of the lack of sleep she had begun to suffer from. What did sleep hold for her but nightmares and a constant reminder of her failures and failings? And the one night she slept peacefully...

Her stomach lurched and she jumped to the floor, racing towards her en-suite bathroom, hand clasped tightly to her mouth. She barely made it to the toilet before the contents of her stomach fled her body. Gripping the rim tightly, she closed her eyes, listening intently to the workings of her stomach, attempting to discern if it was preparing itself for round two. Thankfully, the heat left her skin, and her vision returned to normal as a feeling of wellness washed over her. Lack of sleep and strange medication had begun to take its toll.

A pale hand paused as it reached to flush away her sickness, curious eyes darting downwards. It was not a pretty sight, but something stuck to the side of the bowl, something pink and round.

'Great,' she sighed inwardly. 'Now you've started to vomit up your medication.'

Disgusted, she flushed and shakily stood, cautious of the effect of every movement.

What would this mean? Would she descend further into madness without her medication? Would she attack someone again? Someone who was only trying to help?

Frightened blue eyes flashed in her field of vision, speckles of red dotting a white shirt.

She wished that Claire would visit, knowing that she never would. If only she had the chance to apologise, as hollow as such an attempt would be. It was always those that she had never wanted to hurt that ended up wounded for her sake.

Even now, she still harmed those she had once sworn to protect.

Quietly, she paced her room, willing lethargy to return. She could never sleep when her mind was so preoccupied. Perhaps that was why she struggled so much to sleep in this place. There was no company, no meaningful activity; nothing to distract her from the guilt she felt for so many things.

She did not know what brought her hand to the door handle. She had tried it on many occasions, and it was always locked. MaxSec patients did not have the luxury of free roaming. For the safety of themselves and others, they were not permitted to wander out of the sight of staff. When staff slept, this meant that so too must they.

But the staff were only human. And humans all too often made errors. Forgetting to lock her door was one.

It opened without a sound, and the hallway outside was dark and empty. A skeleton staff operated at night, and as MaxSec was supposed to be locked down, security generally treated it as they did any other section.

Moonlight streamed in through the windows, casting grey shadows on the smooth floor. Sadly, she did not find it quite as calming as she once had. Every shadow was suspicious now, every blue tone cast upon antique wallpaper and rotting flesh, no matter where she was. Some things did not quite leave you, not even after a decade.

Her journey took her to the main residential wing; a calmer area with more homely decoration than the clinical MaxSec wing. From what she had heard, the rooms here were a little less bare than her own.

It was then that the first sounds were heard, quiet but deafening in the still silence that had encompassed the hospital. Footsteps approached her position and her chest tightened. If they found her out of her room they would perhaps mistake it as an escape attempt and she would lose what little freedom she had.

She hid behind a large potted plant, finding that her white pyjamas and blonde hair somewhat blended into the décor. The planet was large enough to hide her form and the corridor remained dark enough that they would not see her unless they looked closely.

Hushed voices followed footsteps, and several members of regular staff approached. It struck her as odd; by rights, they should not have been there. The night staff rarely changed, and there was little need for so many non-security personnel to be present at such an hour. There were four of them in total, and she did not recognise a single one.

They approached a nearby door, sliding a key into the lock. Regular patients had the luxury of being able to control the state of their door, but there was always an option for staff to open them in case of emergencies. Jill recognised the room as Veronica's, and leaned forward a little, partially curious and partially worried. Had something happened to her?

The staff entered the room and seconds later she heard her friend's sleepy voice, though she could not make out the words. Then, a scream cut through the air, muffled thuds following. Jill's blood ran cold and she darted from her position, a little less quietly than she had intended. More footsteps thundered towards her, only one pair of feet this time. She squashed herself near the wall, breath held as another member of staff - a stranger in a lab coat this time - ran past, seemingly oblivious to her presence.

Wasting no time, she ran, not stopping until she was safely back in her own room, beneath the covers and feigning sleep.

She trembled, stomach lurching dangerously again. And all the while, her friend's scream echoed in her ears.

* * *

Breakfast was approached fearfully that morning. As sleepy as she was, her stomach reminded her that it had ejected her previous meal and demanded another.

Strangely, she found that her mind was not clouded in such a thick fog this morning. Her senses still seemed dulled, but not to the extent that she had previously experienced. Was it the result of another dreamless sleep?

'It could be because you technically didn't take your medication last night,' she realised.

It was true that she had been frightfully docile and lacked concentration since she had begun to take that which the doctors forced upon her. She had never questioned it, had never truly thought about what she was taking. But now...

Memories of a worrying incident plagued her. Surely she could not have dreamed such a thing; she remembered the cool touch of the floor to her bare feet, and the scream that had raised every hair on her body.

But Veronica was there, at breakfast. She tucked into a bowl of oatmeal, her appetite as improved as it had been these last few days. If her progress continued, they expected her to be discharged within the week.

When questioned, Veronica simply looked at her, confused.

"It was the best night's sleep I've had in a while," she said. "I'm sure I'd have noticed someone entering my room. Especially if they caused me to scream."

Lisa met Jill's eyes warily.

"You been taking your medication?"

Jill knew that it was a joke, but it brought forth a serious question. Perhaps she had hallucinated the event. It had felt no less real than any of her previous episodes, it simply lacked the violence.

"Or maybe you're just going to miss her," Lisa suggested, laughing. "We're all jealous of her progress. She'll get to see her family again soon, right 'Ronny?"

Veronica did not reply. Her entire body was still, spoon deep in her bowl as her eyes fixed on the wall ahead. She did not blink, did not move at all.

"Veronica?" Jill said.

A second or two passed before she responded, humming as though no time had passed at all.

"You okay?"

She nodded slowly before returning silently to her breakfast.

Uneasy, Jill looked to Lisa, finding the same concern etched onto her features.

"You're not yourself this morning, 'Ronny," Lisa said. "Maybe sleep ain't good for you."

Jill cleared her own plate quickly, a shiver rising up her spine. The medication they were all served with their meal waited in a small cup beside her juice. As though by instinct, she reached for it, though paused before she could bring it to her lips. An unfamiliar clarity of mind, though not a complete one, told her to stop, to think about what she was doing. How could she be sure that what they were giving her was truly helping? Who was to say that the drugs were not to control her, to make her docile and essentially strip her of all that made her Jill Valentine?

With a quick glance around, she tipped the pills into her napkin and covered it quickly before raising the empty cup to her lips and taking a swig of her juice. She gathered the napkin in her hand and rose to her feet, bidding her friends a quick farewell before she retreated to her room.

Any guilt that she felt over the failure to take her medication dissipated as she lowered herself onto her bed and felt a wave of fatigue sweep over her. It felt pure, untainted, and she allowed it to consume her, to take her into a sleep she could only hope was as apparently dreamless as that of the previous night.

* * *

_Her legs felt heavy, her brain hurt. These were the only two things she was sure of. Every inch of her body ached, from her skin to her bones. Two and a half years of fighting for her own mind had taken a toll on every part of her._

_They had her on a saline drip, and checked on her every hour. Her system was going through withdrawal, they said. It seemed ironic that her body yearned for the drug that had enslaved it._

_But she was not alone in her recovery, not even for one minute. He was there when she drifted off to a rough sleep, and was still there when she woke, often slumbering himself. His own wounds were bandaged, and after a few days those bandages disappeared, revealing broken and bruised skin. He should have been recovering, should have been in a bed of his own. But he refused to leave her side, apologising when he needed to take an occasional toilet break._

_She would never admit it, but she enjoyed his company. After two and a half years, it was good to see him with her own eyes and not merely through a dream or hazy memory._

_"They said I can take you home soon," Chris told her one day. Apparently only one week had passed, though it felt so much longer._

_"I don't even know where that is any more," she said solemnly. Two and a half years. Two and a half years. Who knew where she truly belonged any more?_

_"With me," he said. "It's always with me, you know that. You can stay as long as you like. Stay forever if you want."_

_She chuckled. He was never this open, never this subtly desperate._

_"You missed me." It was almost mocking, almost teasing._

_"Every second," he answered shamelessly. "God Jill, don't ever do anything that stupid again. I don't think my heart can take it. Do you know what it's like to lose your best friend?"_

_Jill thought about this, for less than a second._

_"No," she said. "But I know what it's like to think you are about to lose them. To know that anything is better than that hell. And I know what it's like to spend the next couple of years listening to life ask 'Even this?'"_

_The hand that curled around hers squeezed tightly._

_"I'm sorry," he uttered breathlessly, emotion weighing down his words. She was sure he would have cried had he not been so damn stubborn when it came to the expression of weakness._

_"Don't be," she urged. "Because I spent every second answering 'yes'."_

* * *

The hospital frightened him. Too many bad memories, of signing her away, of watching as they led her to her cell - no matter what they called it or how they dressed it up, that's what it was to him; another form of captivity.

Chris signed his name and accepted a Visitor badge, pinning it to his jacket quickly. Crossing the threshold had been the difficult part; now he found himself filled with anticipation, as fearful as it may have been.

"She has been making good progress," Jill's doctor told him. He had been lucky enough to find her conversing with the receptionist as he checked in, luckier still that she had offered to walk him to her patient's room. "I have dealt with a lot of schizophrenic patients in my career, and Jill is unique. It may not be a curable condition, but I truly believe that in her case it can be managed to a degree that would allow her to live a perfectly normal life."

Unique. Even in sickness, she was still the Jill he knew.

"She's too stubborn to settle for anything less," he chuckled.

Dr. Hendricks smiled in agreement.

"I am hoping to push for a release as soon as possible," she revealed. "I believe that it is better for her to be at home, amongst people she cares about and who care about her in return. As soon as her episodes are under control, this should be no problem at all."

Chris was not sure how he felt about this. While it would be good to have her back where she belonged, was he truly capable of taking care of her? He had believed that once, and look what happened...

The door they stopped before was nondescript, with a small name card that read 'Valentine, Jill' slotted into a rectangular display. Dr. Hendricks knocked on the door, not waiting for a response before opening.

"Jill," she called softly. "There is someone here to see you."

A sleepy groan could be heard from somewhere in the room.

"Take your time," the doctor said, bowing her head gently before she left him to it.

And just like that, the fear returned. A few steps separated them; he could not yet see her, was fearful of what would happen when he did. The urge to turn, to leave before she knew that he was there, was overpowering. But somehow, he found the strength to push open the door, to step inside and look up.

Breath caught in his throat, and he was sure that his heart skipped a beat or two. She sat, barefoot, on the edge of the bed, still in the white pyjamas Claire had bought her as a 'welcome back' present.

And she was beautiful. He recognised this as though he had somehow forgotten it in the time they had been separated. Though there were bags beneath her eyes and she was a little paler than when he had last seen her, she was still beautiful. Those blue eyes were as vibrant as they had ever been, and when they met his...

It seemed to take a moment or two for her to register exactly who he was. It was as though she denied it, told herself that it was not possible. But she rose anyway, found his arms as she embraced him, perhaps to test if he was real or if this was some trick of the mind.

Having her in his arms, pressed against him so tightly...it filled him with relief, and with affection that brought his arms around her in return, holding her tightly, as though she would slip away at a moment's notice.

She was a little skinnier, her skin a little colder. And when her hair pressed to his nose, he could not smell her, only an unfamiliar shampoo. It was as though this place had stripped her of everything that made her Jill. His Jill.

'She was never yours.' A cruel reminder.

"You came," she breathed. "You came..."

"Yes."

A deep sigh was both heard and felt.

"Thank you."

Reluctantly, she pulled back, a smile brilliantly displayed on lips he barely remembered how it felt like to kiss. But that was many years ago, was but a wonderful memory in their previous life. Now...any taboo attached to it had only increased, any realisations it had brought on only seemed more true. It could never be, not them, not now, not ever. Something always got in the way.

There was so much that he wanted to tell her, so much that he wanted to apologise for. But she was here, and she was so close. She was not some dream, not some hope or hallucination. His mind was focused on nothing else, and could think of nothing else.

"I thought you would never come," she said. "I...I thought you'd given up on me."

The smile faded from her lips and from her eyes, and she turned from him, found the edge of her bed and sat sadly upon it.

Guilt wracked every inch of him. Cautiously, he fell to his knees before her, took her hands in his. They were as pale and cold as porcelain, and he held them as though they would crack if he held too tightly.

"No..." he whispered. Then, louder: "I was afraid. And for that I apologise. It was nothing to do with you, it was me. I was stupid and I was inconsiderate. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I am truly sorry."

A smile appeared, but it was not whole, was forced and weak.

"It's been hell." She did not say it to further his guilt, merely uttered it as a truth. "I don't like it here, Chris. I want to come home."

"I want you to come home too," he said. "And your doctor said that may be happening soon."

The smile was more genuine this time. What had he been thinking, hiding from her for this long? He knew this woman, respected her as he had for years before he fell in love and every day ever since. Her strength may have weakened, but it was not gone. How else could she still be here, after everything the years had put her through?

He only wished that there were some way that he could tell her this, some way that he could show her just how strong and capable she truly was. Something in her eyes told him that she had forgotten this.

"They are doing something," she whispered, hands suddenly tight around his. "To us. To me. The drugs, they...I don't know what they are doing to me, but I..."

"Jill." It was fear that brought him to speak her name, uneasiness settling back in. "They are helping you. That is all they are doing."

"No!" She was insistent. "Chris, they attacked a friend of mine last night. She doesn't remember, but I saw it, I _heard_ it!"

Chris pulled back, rose to his feet. An uncomfortable feeling settled in his stomach, brought pains to his chest.

"Jill, why would they-"

"I don't know!" Her voice was loud, her eyes desperate and pleading. "She has changed, they did something to her! And my medication, they-"

She cut herself off, eyes flicking to the side. And she turned, recovered a napkin from her bedside table.

"I was sick last night," she explained. "I threw up my medication, and when I woke this morning I felt a little more clear-headed. I could think, perhaps not clearly, but my mind was a little less foggy than it has been. So, I...I didn't take them this morning."

"Jill..." Sirens rang in his ears, walls seeming to close in.

"Take them," she pleaded, thrusting the napkin into his hand. Two pills lay in the folds, one pink, one white. "Test them, or...or something. I don't know what they are, but they aren't helping me, they are making things worse!"

Worrying memories returned, visions of fights, of episodes he should have recognised earlier. Manic voice, wild eyes, lack of sense...

She was the same girl he had left. Nothing had changed, nothing had improved.

And just like that, his mood plummeted.

He stepped back, distancing himself from her. And she fell silent, seemed to recognise his actions.

"Chris..." she pleaded.

He could not find words to spare for her. Simply looking at her made him sick to the stomach. He couldn't do this.

Apologetic in mind but not in voice, he turned without a word. And he left.

Just like that.

**AN - Please review :)**


	4. A Foul Wind

**AN** - This was originally the first half of Chapter Three, but it felt right to split it in two - it would have been far too long had I left it as planned. However, that does mean that it kind of ends in the middle of things. I think it actually works better this way, but I guess that will be for you to decide next chapter!  
As always, thank you so much to those who reviewed the last chapter. I love reading your comments, so please keep them coming!

* * *

**Host**

_**Chapter Three - **A Foul Wind_

**_March 2, 2009. St. Anne's Hospital_**

She awoke violently, to a shaking that seemed to move her whole body.

"Jill, wake up!" A familiar voice pleaded in a low whisper. "Wake up!"

Jill opened her eyes to find that she _was_ quite literally being shaken awake. Lisa pushed and pushed, relenting only when she saw that her eyes were open. Then, she grabbed her hand, hauling her to her feet before she had fully roused herself from sleep.

"Where's the fire?" she mumbled, hoping that there was a good excuse for this interruption. It was... Oh. It was eight thirty in the morning. A perfectly reasonable time to be up. Unless, of course, you had only succeeded in kicking your way into sleep in the early hours of the morning.

"In the fucking air," Lisa said.

She pushed her to the doorway, pulling back when she almost took a step too far. Jill peered through the crack, catching sight of several members of staff approaching one of the empty rooms across the hall.

"Wait a minute...how did you get in here?"

"They unlock the doors when the morning staff arrive, now shut up and look!"

An empty wheelchair was wheeled into the hallway, and the door slammed shut. A few minutes later, one of the staff psychiatrists emerged, shaking his head. Dr. Hendricks stood but a few feet away.

"That's not possible!" she argued, keeping her voice as respectfully low as she could. "I don't understand... How could this have happened?"

Lisa tugged on the back of Jill's pyjamas, pulling her back into the room whilst she allowed the door to close silently behind them.

"A new patient?" Jill asked. Lisa shook her head solemnly.

"It's Veronica," she said. "She had a psychotic episode in the middle of the night; I'm surprised you didn't hear it, she woke half of her wing. I heard Doctor Miller say that it looks like schizophrenia."

Jill refrained from asking the obvious - she could see the disbelief in Lisa's eyes. Never before had she seen her friend so concerned. There was none of her usual bounce, none of her jokes or her snarky comments.

"Jill, I... I don't know what the hell is going on. She was anorexic, not psychotic. She was doing so well, she was supposed to go home in a few days!"

She could think of no words of comfort to offer. Instead, she watched as Lisa sunk to the edge of her bed, elbows resting on her knees as her head fell into her hands.

"Crazy is the one thing I know well," Lisa laughed bitterly. "But I don't...I just don't know anymore."

* * *

The hospital loomed ahead, all shadows and sharp corners. It was not an institution, not an asylum of old, but it sure felt like one. Leon frowned as he exited his car, keys in hand and questions on his mind.

He had been sure to visit regularly, and had begun to wonder if he was the only one who did. Claire would always beg him to take her, but she was still recovering and a nasty bout of influenza had knocked her for six recently. Then there was Rebecca, a million miles away. She would call frequently for an update, claiming that the hospital refused to patch a call through to her friend. Her research kept her busy these days, he couldn't blame her for her distance. And then there was Barry, who had a business to run. Every time he set aside a slot for Jill in his busy schedule, something would come along and steal his time, be it a botched shipment, an angry customer or family commitments.

Leon thought it best not to consider Chris's reasons. They only angered him. True, he did not know the guy very well, did not know if he knew him quite well enough to call him friend, but Jill truly was a friend, and a damn good one at that...he hated to see her hurt.

Perhaps it made him a hypocrite, to know that he had not come to visit her this time.

Dr. Hendricks greeted him shortly after he arrived. He was a little surprised by her youth, and by the smile that seemed to break the homogenous gloom of the other doctors. Psychiatrists of her age were usually found in a less severe setting than the one she had found herself in. Bad luck? Or good?

"You understand that I am limited as to what i can reveal to you," she said, no sooner than Jill's name had left his lips. "I am bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, and I prefer not to break the trust of my patients."

"I understand."

The psychiatrist took him on a walking tour of the facility, though little attention was paid to where they were going.

"Jill's condition is strange."

"How so?"

Dr. Hendricks seemed to consider this for a moment or two before she responded.

"She is too old," she explained. "Her age is not typical of the onset of schizophrenia. And...it came on too fast. True, we must take into account the trauma that she suffered during her captivity, but it still strikes me as rather odd."

She paused again, evidently carefully considering her words.

"I believe that the experimentation performed on her has had an alarming effect on her brain chemistry. Tests showed an excess of dopamine in her system. Many studies link the excessive presence of dopamine to schizophrenia, but dopamine blockers seem to be having little effect on certain aspects of her condition, including emotional flattening. If I had access to records involving the experimentation performed on her, perhaps I could better understand her condition."

There seemed to be a thinly veiled request in her voice, one that pricked at hairs on his arms.

"That is classified information," he warned. "There is no way I or anyone else could authorise it."

Dr. Hendricks rolled her eyes. A move that was a little too casual.

"Of course," she said, humourless laughter underlying her voice. "Mr. Kennedy, I don't know what else I can tell you."

They stopped outside of a set of double doors that led to an expansive garden. Patients occupied it, some walking, some resting, others tending to the flowers.

Leon eyed his companion suspiciously. Over the years, he liked to believe that he had developed a talent for reading others. It was a useful ability to possess in a role such as his. It helped to discern where allegiences lay...and whether a doctor was to be believed.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"I feel somewhat useless," Hendricks replied impatiently. "I am being asked to treat a patient whose medical history is full of omitted details. Given that her experimentation seems to have had a direct effect on her mental condition, I believe that she would be better off under the care of someone who was not so in the dark."

Her eyes challenged him, her stance stubborn despite the fact that he had at least six inches on her.

"Then I fear we have nothing further to discuss."

At that moment, the quiet ring of a phone distracted the doctor. She retrieved her cell phone from the pocket of her coat, and for a moment the guard fell from her eyes.

"It was a pleasure talking to you," she said, a little too plainly. "I must take this call. If you have any further questions, you know how to contact me."

She turned on her heel, towards a corridor Leon knew led to a dead end. St. Anne's hospital was currently undergoing major construction work, as the older section of the building was transformed into a new maximum security wing, one designed to house research facilities as well as a new, more secure ward for the more violent patients. It was towards a connecting hallway that Dr. Hendricks strolled, and he felt obliged to follow.

There were no other members of staff in the vicinity, and no patients. Why would there be? The rooms at this end of the hospital were empty, for what reason he did not know. But Dr. Hendricks stopped just shy of the connecting door and pressed her cellphone to her ear.

"You shouldn't call me at work," she hissed into her hand.

Leon pressed himself against the wall, hiding just around the corner from her position.

"You know the risks I face." Her tone told him that she was less than happy with this.

"Don't be silly, you know I won't leave this place. Why? You think I trust the others enough for this?"

Every breath felt too loud, and the urge to move closer was overwhelming. Alas, he dared not put himself in a position where he would be accused of eavesdropping. He would never be able to secure a meeting with the woman again.

"It happened again last night. No, I am no closer. Kennedy was here again, wanted to speak to me this time."

The mention of his name brought him to lean closer into the wall.

"I don't think so. His concern is for Valentine, that is all. No, I don't think she will be leaving here anytime soon. Yes, I know."

There was a long period of silence, one that made him uncomfortable.

"Understood. I'm afraid that without the Kijuju files this is going to take some time. If she was in our hands, it would be much easier. There is very little that I can do here. Yes. Yes. Okay, I will speak with you again tomorrow. Please don't call me here again."

Leon remained where he was, silent until her footsteps faded away. If she saw him as she passed his position, she did not let on.

Suspicion reached new heights. And suddenly, his concern for Jill reached a newfound height.

* * *

"I want you to close your eyes."

Jill obliged, as restless as she felt. Dr. Hendricks' voice was soothing enough that this just may work.

"And I want you to think back, as far as you can into this period."

She found that she followed the doctor's orders easily. It was not a period of her life that she was eager to remember, but if she could only tap into the vast blackness of the times she had forced herself to forget... Maybe, just maybe, it would help.

"Tell me, what was the first thing that you remember?"

Pain. Light. She had felt so weak that she could barely open her eyes. And when she did...she saw him. Those months he spent nursing her back to health haunted her still. He never once hid his intentions; he was healing her only so that her body could be used for his purposes. To kill. To destroy. First in one way, then in another.

Jill recounted her experiences, sparing no detail. Hiding had not helped, perhaps... No. She tasted the bitterness of her words, the poison still there. But the memories ended with a needle in her arm, and the all-consuming blackness that had enveloped her world for an indeterminate period of time. Then, she had awoken, wet and confused...and blonde. It was then that the true horror had begun.

Her vision was tinted with black, a horrific whining filling her ears. She recalled the coldness of the operating table, waking to find that strange device attached to her chest. She remembered the fear that gripped her when she found herself succumb to his suggestions. And the harder she fought, the harder it became to fight...until she could not fight at all. Soon, it was not suggestion. Soon, her body moved as though he pulled invisible strings. She knew that what she was doing was wrong, but remained powerless. It was as though she remained in a glass cell, forced to watch the carnage around her but no matter how hard she pounded on the walls she could not stop it. And it was carnage that she perpetrated, in his name.

_"You are my greatest achievement, Jill. Your blood has given me a child worthy of its purpose. I have called it Uroboros. The snake that eats its own tail. It will bring humanity full circle, and through it the worthy will be reborn."_

"No. No!"

"Jill!"

She felt the tears cascade down her cheeks. Blood tainted her memories; blood she had shed. All those nights she had spent, hoping that Chris would find her, but so fearful of what would he would do when he did. He would abandon her, would perhaps even slay her for the greater good. She was nothing more than a tyrant these days, another creation of Umbrella.

"Forgive me, Chris," she whispered. "I am so sorry."

"Jill!"

Hands upon her cheeks broke her from her terror, and she looked up into the eyes of her psychiatrist. They were eyes filled with worry and guilt.

"I am so sorry," Dr. Hendricks said regretfully. "I should never have asked this of you."

"No," Jill gasped. "I can...I can do it, I can-"

"Don't even think about it! We are done for today. Rest. You are strong, Jill, you need to remember that. You are so much more than what he made you."

They were the first kind words she had heard since her admission. Nobody else had thought to offer them. She had begun to believe it was because they were not true, yet here they were, from the mouth of one paid to care for her. She had no obligation to comfort, no reason to act as a friend. Not when the other staff seemed to belittle her at every opportunity.

"Thank you."

* * *

The beer was cold, even after its long departure from the fridge. That was why he always bought bottles. You could never trust cans. You could never trust most things these days.

Like science. Or was that the one thing you could trust? He didn't know any more. He was three packs of beer down, and Sheva was still only on her second bottle. Maybe Claire was right. Maybe he did drink too much these days.

Hope had vacated his world. That much was certain. It was with little hope that he fled Jill's hospital room, but little by little it returned as he acquiesced her last request and submitted her medication for testing. What if she was right? What if he was the paranoid one?

Alas, the results were not those he was secretly hoping for. Atypical antipsychotics and dopamine blockers; regular treatment for schizophrenic patients. Like Jill. Because that's what she was. Schizophrenic.

'You know there's no cure for that.'

It wasn't like her system would spontaneously develop an immunity to this. All those antibodies and they couldn't do a damn thing.

"Perhaps we should call this a night," Sheva suggested, moving beside him on the sofa. "We're getting nowhere. Well, you are getting increasingly drunk, but somehow I don't think that is going to help us."

Drunk? He wasn't drunk.

Sheva gathered the paperwork, sorting it all into the correct folders. He had forgotten what it was that they were working on.

"I know what this is about," she claimed. "We are all worried about Davis. I'm sure he will be fine. He probably got stressed out, blew off some steam and woke up in Mexico. He will stumble back into the office any day now."

She had it all wrong. But he thought it best to play along.

"Some are saying that he double crossed us," he said. "Some of the data he was working on went missing the same time he did."

"Do you honestly think that?"

"No..."

Davis was one of the most trusted senior members of the BSAA - they had not handed this assignment to just anyone. And he was responsible...and teetotal.

"Jill trusted him," Sheva said. Why was she bringing her into this? "I heard she recommended him for the project."

"She told me not to deny his request for involvement."

Silence. Sheva sighed. She could sigh all she wanted, she knew that he did not want to talk about his partner._ Former_ partner."

"I had always heard of her good judgement. Her level head. Her skill with a knife, and with a stubborn lock. You were both legends amongst the younger recruits. You had seen it all, right from the start. Whatever we had seen, it was nothing-"

"You saw your own fair share of tragedy," Chris reminded her. His speech had begun to slur, his vision blurring. "But you pulled through."

Sheva hummed, leaning back into the cushions of his sofa, running a thumb along the top of her bottle. Absent-mindedly, she repeated the action, condensation squeaking against cool glass.

"How are things? How is Josh?"

She smiled now, turned to him, her body moving a little closer as she altered her position.

"He's good. He doesn't stop...reminds me of you, come to think of it." Her eyes dropped to her bottle. "But...things are difficult. You know how it is."

Survivor's guilt. He saw it in every small movement, heard it in every word that she did not speak. He had been to that place himself, many times. They had a table set aside for him now, knew his order by heart.

"Don't think like that," he warned her. "People die. It is one of life's cruel inevitabilities." He was strikingly aware that these were Jill's word's, not his...they were spoken to him once, not forged in his haunted mind. "We need to carry on living, or their sacrifices will have been for nothing. We keep fighting, for them."

Sheva smiled, laughed through thin lips. He leaned closer, a warm hand upon her shoulder. She turned, only slightly. It was innocent, nothing meant. But he found that his breath caught in his throat, loneliness more evident now than it had been since Jill's supposed death. An empty bottle slid from his hands, and he placed numb fingers beneath her chin, tilting her face towards his.

There was confusion in her eyes, but she said nothing, not even as their lips met. They were cold, chilled from the bottle. He could not even taste the beer upon them, nor upon her tongue as her lips parted.

It was the briefest of kisses. She relented but for a moment, pulling back before it could progress any further.

"Don't," she said. "I'm not her."

A new chill settled in his chest. Sheva rose, lifting her coat from the arm of the sofa. He did not even hear her leave, barely even cared. Fatigue swept over him and he flopped down onto the cushions, barely registering the warmth where she had previously sat. The room spun around him, pain settling into his temples.

He was asleep within a heartbeat.

**AN - Please review :)**


	5. Bad Dreams

**AN - **Here is the second half of the last chapter. I don't think it worked quite so well on its own, actually. Seems more filler than anything else, and the damn block is returning so it was a struggle to get out! But, the story starts picking up from here so hopefully it should get a little easier! As always, thank you to everyone who reviewed - they always keep me smiling.

* * *

**Host**

_**Chapter Four - **Bad Dreams_

**March 3, 2009.**

It was not the soft touch of the pillow that she felt against her cheek. When Jill was uncomfortably roused from her sleep, that was the first oddity that she noticed. The second was that she was not in fact in her bed, but on a smooth surface that she recognised after a moment or two as porcelain tile.

Blinking, she pushed herself upright, joints protesting the position she had found herself in. She groaned along with them, but stopped as soon as she was comfortably (though that was debatable) on her backside.

The walls around her were white, with even less decoration than her sparsely-furnished room. There was a mirror along one wall - a two-way mirror if she ever knew one - and a plain wooden door on the perpendicular, shorter, wall. In the centre of the room stood a table, upon which rested only a strange metal panel, with wires that ran from one side and into the wall that housed the mirror. It hummed gently, almost soothingly.

"What the-?" she muttered.

A sharp crackle of static brought her attention to a small speaker above the mirror.

"Good evening, Miss Valentine," greeted a monotonous voice.

"'Evening," she muttered, humouring it if only for her own amusement.

"To open the door, please press your hand on the panel before you."

A pressure panel? A strangely high-tech replacement for a simple door handle. But she shrugged it off. The sooner she got back into her own bed, the better.

Without much thought or consideration, she approached the panel, lay her palm flat against the surface.

Her shriek echoed around the room, arm jolting as pain rain from her fingertips to her shoulder. A shock, travelling up each finger, seeming to jitter along the bone. It was as sharp as it was sudden.

The door did not budge, not even a millimetre.

"Try again," the voice suggested. Jill opened her mouth, prepared to tell it what she thought of that suggestion, but she found that her hand moved quite swiftly to the panel, and once again she found herself jumping back in shock.

"What the hell?" she hissed through clenched teeth. Her ears were ringing now, arm twitching spasmodically.

"Touch the panel one more time," the voice commanded. "Do not remove your hand until instructed."

Though there was not a fibre of her being that wanted to obey, her hand moved, slower this time, but towards the panel nonetheless. Even her free hand did not move, though she willed it to reach out, to stop the other before...

But it was too late. She did not even flinch as every nerve was set aflame, the current not seeming to stop at her shoulder this time. It filled every part of her, sawed its way into the bone of her skull, seemed to work it apart piece by piece. She did not even blink, though inside her soul was screaming.

'What are you doing?' she seemed to scream at herself. 'Stop!'

Her thoughts were disorganised, reacting to the pain as her body did not. But somewhere in the chaos, a crack of light... She ran towards it, focused as she could be. She pulled, with all her might, hacked through the fog upon her mind. It was as though she ran through a forest, one whose every branch tried to ensnare her.

But this forest... These branches... She had been there before.

The road ahead became clear, and suddenly...

Pain hit her backside, though on the whole it subsided. She was perhaps a foot away from the table, clutching her right hand. Her body twitched, saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth.

She was vaguely aware of the snap of a lock, and of footsteps that approached her.

"Miss Valentine," that voice said, no longer disembodied. "Follow us."

"F-fuck you," she spat. The spasms shuddered to a stop, but she was left breathless and reeling from echoes of fear.

They did not even allow her to rise to her feet. A boot connected with her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Before she could organise her thoughts to respond, hands were on her, pinning her to the ground. A sharp, sudden prick of pain in her arm, and...everything was wonderfully quiet.

Arms swung around; she was upright within a breath, heart pounding furiously, body ready to fight. But she was alone, and the surroundings were familiar. It was not the place she felt most comfortable, but it was a room she had come to know well, and just about the closest place she had to home these days.

"Oh God," she gasped, head sinking into her hands as knees rose to her chest.

It was a dream. A fucking horrible one, but a dream nonetheless.

Or was it a memory? Was it an echo of a time past, perhaps a fear of repeat?

Whatever it was, it left her shaking long after the alarm finally beeped at her bedside.

* * *

The beginning of sobriety welcomed Chris with a cheerful wakeup call. His mouth was dry, as though he had seen fit to chew on a sponge as he slept. His stomach felt no better; he may as well have swallowed said sponge after soaking it in dirty dishwater, so happy was his stomach with him.

Memories returned, taunting him. So many beers, so little work. And a kiss...

A sense of guilt the likes of which he had not felt in so long descended upon him. In just how many ways was he going to betray her before this was all over?

But there was no betrayal. Of course. Jill was not his. She was not even sane, was locked up in some psychiatric institution after violently assaulting his sister.

How sure was he that this was not some nightmare, was not some sick, twisted dream.

He pushed himself to an upright position, unsteady and unsettled.

'You're an asshole,' his conscience leered. Jill had told him enough times, and sure she may have been joking at least half of them, but it was the truth beneath it all. Because maybe she was not sane, but that did not make her any less of a person, or his friend. And she was not 'locked up' in a 'psychiatric institution', she was receiving specialist care for a debilitating illness, brought on by trauma, in a residential healthcare facility. And where was he? Wallowing in his own self-pity, taking advantage of the comfort and company of a friend.

He was afraid. Still.

He was a fucking coward.

A shower saw him well enough to stop by the office, though the reflection he caught many glimpses of on the way was not a healthy one. It was as though inner turmoil had taken its toll on his body. Guilt had drawn lines upon his face and bags beneath his eyes.

Sheva was alone in his office, sorting through the files they were supposed to have processed the night before. She did not look up as he entered, seemed to distract herself with the work rather than immerse herself in it.

"Hey," he called; the act of making his presence known in a way that she could not ignore.

"'Morning."

There was a sad tone to her voice, one that pulled him down several notches and did nothing for the pain in his chest.

"Listen, I'm sorry about what happened last night," he said, hangover reminding him that it was there and it wasn't going to let him get off easily with this one. "I was drunk, and..."

"It's okay." She raised her head, smiled at him. And it was as genuine a smile as he had ever seen upon her lips.

But it did not reach her eyes.

"Sheva..."

A sigh rocked her body, attention falling back to the papers. She leafed through them absently, blinking a little too often.

"I-"

"They found Davis." There was something frighteningly serious in her voice.

Chris waited for her to continue, did not press. He had done enough damage as it was.

"Is he okay?"

The gentle shake of her head sent chills down his spine.

"His body was found in a field several miles out of town," she said, voice devoid of any hint of emotion. She may as well have been reading from a Teleprompter. "They... The coroner's report has not come back yet, but they said..."

A deep breath slowed her speech. Still, he waited.

"They said he was tortured to death. At least...that's what it looks like. And now Hicks and Murton are missing too."

A question lingered on curve of his lips, but he knew the answer already; they would not have found the data that went missing with him. It was perhaps a small mercy that it was not a particularly important set of data. There would be repercussions, though. They would not be allowed to remove anything from the office now, and he knew that the Tech guys would be working overtime on a new set of encryptions.

But one harrowing realisation chilled him to the pit of his stomach: Hicks and Murton were on the same team. The same team that he and Sheva were part of, the same team that Davis had once been a member of.

"They are giving the media free reign," Sheva explained. "They think it will cause Tricell to tighten their leashes, given the negative impact it will have on their standing in the trial."

And for once, he had nothing to say. Lord knew he was no good at comforting these days. And when your name was on the list the only thing left to wonder was 'where?'.

* * *

Jill rose too late for breakfast that day. Her mind and body were exhausted, echoes of a nightmare ensuring that she did not sleep soundly.

"You look like hell," Lisa told her as she approached, finding comfort in the cushions in the TV room. Staff already seemed settled into their roles behind the station, no sign of the doctors, likely all deep into sessions at this time.

Fiona elbowed their friend amicably, not once tearing her eyes away from a news report on the flat screen. Veronica sat beside her, seemingly disinterested in all that surrounded her. She was eerily quiet these days, rarely speaking unless spoken to.

"Bad dreams." It was an all-too-common excuse. But the voice of the newsreader stole away any thought of elaboration. It was not often that she heard her old team's name within these walls.

"-Senior BSAA Member Gregory Davis was found this morning. No further details have been released into the circumstances surrounding the discovery, but the cause of death has been declared 'suspicious'."

Davis. She knew him, if not closely. He had joined the BSAA shortly after the restructuring that had followed the Il Veltro Incident, had worked with herself and Chris on several cases since then. He was tall, with a closely-shaven head, skin almost as pale as hers, and eyes that reminded her of her father's.

Why was she remembering these details? Why now?

"Did you know him?" Lisa was sitting forward now, eyebrows raised. It was a posture rarely seen; one that signalled great interest. Lisa was indifferent to so much, it was noticeable when she did sit up and pay attention, so to speak. Jill had begun to find it frustrating how this was seemingly always in relation to her.

"Yes," she said, knowing that more details would be requested if she did not provide them. "He...I used to work with him."

Fiona chuckled to herself.

"You, with the BSAA?" It was said incredulously. Enough that Jill was slightly offended.

"You think we all wandered in here straight from the crib?" she said. "Yes, I used to work for the BSAA, as an SOA. That man, he..."

He was working on the Kijuju case, she just knew it. Before her episodes had become too severe, before people stopped trusting her - not that all of them had every truly started to again - she had backed his application to join the team. His deduction was flawless, his skills with a computer rivalled only by Cetcham; they would have been crazier than she had they turned him away.

Suddenly, Leon's words returned to her. She would be safer here. Had they expected this? Were the others at risk too? Surely even Tricell with all their blind ambition would not be so reckless?

"What happened?" asked Lisa. Perhaps she was simply humouring her.

"I was kidnapped," Jill replied, without thinking. The words fell from her tongue with very little conscious effort. That happened a lot these days. It took very little effort to do what others asked, to reveal what was requested. Dr. Hendricks was amazed with her progress, but she was not so sure that was what it was. Maybe it was simply lack of caring, finally giving up.

Lisa's eyebrows raised again, disbelief in her expression but horror within her eyes.

"My old boss...wasn't the nicest man. He went from someone we looked up to - a qualified leader - to the world's most dangerous bioterrorist. My partner and I stumbled across him on an assignment, and...we fought. We lost. I was gravely injured and when I woke up, I was in his 'care'...and I remained there for the next two and a half years. They say the things he did to me are why I am here."

Despair fell upon her, a dull pain winding its way through her nerves. They would think her crazy. So why had she spoken? Why had she told them that which she had barely found the strength to tell her psychiatrist?

She tried to hide her tremors, but that only made them more pronounced.

"He..." Lisa seemed to struggle to find words. Jill really wished that she wouldn't. It would be so much better if she just remained silent, if she shrugged it off and didn't care. But it seemed that she had begun to value their friendship, perhaps a little too much.

"He enslaved me," Jill said. These times the words felt like her own, took a little more effort to spit out. And her voice was not so monotonous, sounded a little more human. "He drugged me with a chemical that made me do whatever the hell he wanted me to. And maybe they're right, maybe that was what brought me here. I'm still fucking dreaming about it! Only this time it's white walls and-"

"Metal panels."

It was Veronica who spoke, barely a mumble above the din of her own thoughts. Even the others did not seem to hear her. Life seemed to return to the girl's eyes, and they met with hers for but a brief moment before they snapped away again. She breathed heavily, pushed herself to her feet with shaking arms. And then she left, not seeming to bother the others with her departure.

Jill followed, lest Lisa find more questions for her.

Veronica stopped a little way down the hall, once she realised that she was being followed.

"They are just dreams, right?" she muttered. "Like...when friends spend a lot of time together their bodies can sync. Having periods at the same time and all... That's what it is, right? Like...like a group hallucination?"

Jill knew better.

* * *

There was a beer waiting for him when he returned home, open and warm. He really needed to stop leaving shit around the apartment; Jill may not have been there to yell at him but Claire was, and she was visiting a lot lately.

Chris knocked back the beverage as he dumped his keys on the dining table, and his coat on the chair. Something uncomfortable settled into his skin.

Jill... It was the first time since her departure that her absence had been so startling.

Part of her was still there, as it always had been. The part that resided in photographs on the bookshelf, in the jacket that still hung next to his door. The part that still rested in the box in the back of his closet, the one filled with memories of her. It had never been intended to be a box full of Jill. It was a simple box of memories, of the little things that meant the most to him. It was not until he found it shortly after she had defenestrated their former Captain (and herself along with him) that he realised that they were all things that reminded him of her. Everything from photographs to mementos from their S.T.A.R.S. days. Because she had been everything good in his life since those days ended.

Why did this have to happen to her? Had she not suffered enough?

A little more beer, and he sank into the sofa.

He missed her like crazy, but he had for a long time. He could live without her. Perhaps not happily, but if he knew that she was okay and she was happy, then he could let go. But she was not okay, and she sure as hell was not happy. And she never could be in that place.

'I need to see her,' he decided. 'I need to tell her that it's gonna be okay.'

He could not promise her that, but he could promise her that he would try to make it so. He owed her so much more for the times she had been there for him (more often than not to slap him upside the head and tell him to get his act together...which, it always transpired, was exactly what he needed to do).

The last few drops of beer, and he rose to his feet. They were a little less steady than he had expected.

He would call in sick tomorrow, would visit her like he should have done every day since her committal.

A hand shot out, grabbed the back of the sofa. His legs were more than unsteady; they seemed unwilling to co-operate.

A shadow caught his eye, moving behind the door to his bedroom. The glass slipped from his hand; he had not left it out - he had been sure to clear everything away before he left that morning. The empty bottles beside the sink, all rinsed out, were evidence enough of that.

How could have have been so fucking stupid?

The shadow stepped into the light, but it had not expected him to lunge. It stumbled as he pushed it into the wall, landing a blow that was returned savagely. His vision swam, brain attempting to shut down and lull him to sleep. But he fought the urge, and he fought the hands of the intruder as they pushed him back into the open space behind the sofa. Pain erupted in his side; it could not have been bare hands that hit him. With a well-placed kick to the knees he was on the floor. Blood warmed his face, concerning him as he had no recollection of an inflicting blow. The room spun, but he lunged blindly, unsure if closed fists connected with the intruder or with an unfortunate item of furniture.

There was respite at last, and he succeeded in hauling himself a little closer to the table; close enough to pluck his cellphone from the pocket. Fingers barely seemed to possess the strength to dial. Maybe they did not dial at all. Maybe it was a hallucination, maybe he was already unconscious. Because the blackness was unforgiving when it consumed him, and his own blood against the carpet was the last thing he saw.

**AN - Please review :)**


	6. The Death of Chris Redfield

**AN** - Still not happy with this. I should have gotten it up a lot sooner but...the block...the dreaded block. I am trying to power through it but I think in this case deciding not to write down my plan before I started is affecting it. Looking back, I feel like I have made so many mistakes with this, but...argh hopefully it's not to late to fix them. Losing inspiration sucks but we all go through this from time to time.  
Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon! Thank you to all who are reading and reviewing!

* * *

**Host**

_**Chapter Five -** The Death of Chris Redfield_

**May 4, 2009.**

Veronica was not there that morning. Lisa claimed that she was tired, had chosen an extra few hours in bed over breakfast. No stranger to such a feeling, Jill did not question it. Bad dreams had plagued her once again that night, though this time they were perhaps not quite as horrific. The line between reality and dream still blurred in her mind. The memories of her time in Africa were still somewhat hazy, but she remembered steel and blood, not white walls and clinical trials.

She was a little more jittery that morning too. No matter how many hours of sleep she logged, she woke feeling completely drained. The urge to simply remain in bed all day was overwhelming, but she had appointments to attend and a recovery to focus on.

Recovery. That was a laugh.

"This gets more and more depressing every day," Lisa sighed, eyes glued to the television screen. Jill did not like to watch the news. It only reminded her of how much she had missed in the time she was gone.

"Not exactly inspiring stuff, you know?" Lisa said. "Hardly puts you in any hurry to get back out there."

It was a familiar emblem that caught Jill's attention, caused her to raise a hand to silently shush her friend, stole words that she was about to share. The BSAA did not make the news often these days. The investigation had largely stayed out of the media, with updates here and there as to the progress of the court case.

"-more tragedy to face the BSAA, following the death of one of its longest-serving agents, as well as the disappearance of two more senior members."

She felt the eyes of her friend flick to her face, though she did not turn. The information that found its way to her through Leon was hardly substantial; something fishy was going on here, as much as he tried to deny it (or shield her from it). The BSAA selected the best agents the world had to offer. They did not vanish into thin air so often.

"The body of founding member Christopher Redfield was found in his apartment in the early hours of this morning. The victim of an apparent home invasion, Agent Redfield-"

The buzzing returned, escalating to a whine this time. The newscaster's words faded into nothing, a familiar photograph replacing the logo in the corner of the screen. Darkness crept into the edges of her vision, lungs seeming to forget how to function.

"Jill?"

"-investigation into the events surrounding the Kijuju Incident-"

Where was it? The needle in the arm, the blackness that would fade into light? Where was the end of this nightmare? Where was the comfort?

"-treated as suspicious-"

"Girl, you don't look so good."

It started as a trembling in the pit of her stomach; a cramp that took on a mind of its own. Shoulders shook in silent trauma, before her body bent in half, breakfast finding its way onto the carpet.

"-reeling from the death of one of its most prominent agents."

Shadows approached, reached out towards her. But what did it matter? What did any of it matter? They could come, they could take her. Beneath the surface, she wished that they would.

* * *

"Good afternoon, Agent Kennedy," the receptionist greeted with a wink. Leon smiled back politely as she dialled the usual line, spoke his name into the receiver. "Dr. Hendricks will be with you in just a moment."

He settled into his usual spot in a black armchair, too preoccupied to flick through the dated magazines. It had taken him two hours longer than he had hoped to finally get away from his duties. In the end, he had told Hunnigan in no uncertain terms that he was leaving and anyone with something to say about the matter could take it up with his voicemail.

It was pure determination that drove him, and the need to reach her before the media did. It was laughable, really. Chris's death had been all over the news that morning. Just as they had planned. Sometimes he wished that his department was not so fast-acting.

Dr. Hendricks appeared tired and dishevelled when she reached him, her blonde hair breaking free from its neat ponytail, bottom lip a little pinker than usual.

"Thank God you're here," she said wearily, beckoning at him to follow. "I'm afraid you may be wasting your time, but...I'm willing to try anything at this stage."

"Is she okay?"

Her words hardly inspired him with confidence.

"She has been in a stupor for the last few hours," the doctor explained, her pace a little too quick for his casual one. "She's virtually catatonic. We've tried everything we can, but she is completely unresponsive. It wasn't unprecedented, but...she was doing so well!"

In those words, he knew that he was too late.

"What happened?"

"I don't know." A wild shrug accompanied the words as they approached Jill's room. "One minute she was watching TV with the other patients, the next she's...well, you can see for yourself."

She opened the door, but did not walk through it with him. Truthfully, he barely even noticed her depart. Jill was awake, and upright on her bed, arms around knees that were tucked in to her chest. But the eyes that stared ahead of her were blank, lips barely parted as she breathed.

"Jill..."

The sound of his voice seemed to stir something within her. Breath hitched fearfully, arms slipping a little around her jeans.

She looked awful. It almost broke his heart. Pale skin seemed closer to the bone with every visit, eyes bearing dark circles, a light trembling to her fingers.

"I don't want to know, Leon." There were likely the first words she had spoken in hours, and her voice reflected this. She did not even turn to look at him, rather closed her eyes and seemed to wish him away. "Just leave me be."

"He's not dead."

She turned this time, a look of utter incredulity in her eyes. But her facial expression remained the same, and she said nothing. Perhaps he could have phrased it a little better, could have eased into it even, but it was obvious that it was something she needed to know, and she was in no mood for long-winded explanations and unnecessary build-up.

"Someone has been targeting the agents assigned to the Kijuju Investigation," he explained, moving closer to her, finding a perch on the edge of the bed so that his voice could drop as low as Chris needed it to. "Two are already dead, one is still missing. They sent someone after Chris but he managed to subdue them. Faking his death was the only way we could save his life. They won't be looking for him any more."

A pitiful laugh escaped her.

"And he couldn't tell me this himself..."

Leon reached out, placed a hand atop her knee and squeezed gently.

"He would if he could, but..."

The 'but' was a mistake, but he was not sure if it had been an unintentional one. He was under a lot of orders, and there were not many he agreed with. This one was from Claire, pleading with him not to worry her. But she would worry regardless; he knew her too well to believe otherwise.

"But what?"

"He was injured. He's gonna be okay, but he's sleeping it off in hospital at the moment."

And there it was, that glint he had both wanted to see and wanted to protect her from. But it was for the best that she knew.

"Can I see him?" Her timidity shattered the resistance within him.

"Yes. If you give me five minutes to speak to your doctor I can take you with me now."

She nodded with a grateful smile and he left her with one last squeeze of the knee.

Dr. Hendricks was waiting in the hall, hastily ending a phone call when she saw him. As if on cue, a vibration in his pocket momentarily stole his attention.

_'If you care about her, you'll get her out of there.'_

The doctor's words drifted past him, unheard. It was not the first strange message he had received over the past few days, but the number was always different. Untraceable. Casual greetings and words of encouragement, it seemed, had turned somewhat sour. He had thought nothing of it, especially when the tech guys could not trace the sender. But now...

Another buzz, another message flashing across the screen.

_'Make your move, rookie. Or we'll make ours.'_

* * *

_The pressure at his neck almost choked the life out of him. Stars appeared in his periphery, fingers clawed uselessly at a gloved hand. His feet did not even touch the floor._

_But it was not hand that would kill him, not even when it ripped his heart from his chest, just like it had the old man. It was her scream. She could see, would see, and knowing Jill she would never forget. If she survived this._

_It was funny how his last thought pertained to her. How the life that flashed before his eyes was not his own, but rather the one he had shared with her. All those happy moments, all those regrets. The night her arms had held him like he meant something to her, like they were lovers and not merely friends fucking out their fears._

_He would have given anything for her not to see this._

_Strange, it was then that the pressure vanished, that his body crashed painfully to the ground. There was a sound like the shattering of glass, far away. When he looked up, Wesker was gone._

_And so was Jill._

_The window was broken, when it had not been before. And just like that, in the eye of his mind he saw her, saw the blue blur of her uniform. Barely a second had passed since his fall when he lunged towards the window, hand reaching out..._

_"Jill!" he cried. But the night and the ocean had already swallowed her._

_He would have given anything..._

_...just not this._

Sleep came sporadically, and his dreams were strange. She haunted every one of them, but what was new? The grogginess that fell over him stung with the bite of a thousand hangovers. His body did not like whatever they had forced into it; dehydrated and weak, he knew that there was nothing to do but wait it out. If the doctors were telling the truth, it should all be over within twenty-four hours.

Claire had visited him that morning, complaining about St. Anne's and their refusal to let her visit Jill. It was not her first attempt, apparently, and she was becoming rather agitated, stating mockingly that she could not "call the President every time someone won't let [her] play" like a certain someone she knew. He couldn't even blame the pain medication any more; she had been off it for a while now.

When the door opened, he had expected her to walk through, ready with a list of his obituaries. It was strange enough to see his 'death' all over the news, let alone hear it from the mouth of his sister.

But it was not Claire, not even Leon (who had threatened to check up on him regularly, perhaps bound by some obligation). It was not anyone he had expected to see.

Jill paused, tentative, at the door, fingers still touching upon the handle. It was more a ghost that found its way before him, a remnant of what once was. Even as the door closed behind her, brought her closer to him, an expression of fearful concern upon her features, he barely believed it to be true. She was thinner than he remembered, and a little darker around the eyes. Her skin was an unnatural shade of white, hands that had once been so capable accommodating an uncharacteristic tremor. Even the way she breathed was different, as though the world around her was unsteady and it was uncertain if her next breath would be her last.

She breathed the same as he did.

"Jill..." The voice doctors had told him to rest sound neglected, but it brought her to his bedside, clammy hand slipping fingers into his. Those of the other hand pressed against his forehead with a tenderness that almost killed him.

"You look like hell," she said with a smile. He almost joked back, would have had it not been for the touch of porcelain to his skin.

"I'm so sorry." Strange how his words echoed hers, though they seemed like a lifetime ago now. And she had apologised for almost killing him, for being captured and enslaved, for a million things that were not her fault yet she had somehow convinced herself were. What did he have to apologise for? A thousand things of his own, and he was to blame for every single one.

There was silence on her part, and she averted her eyes for a moment. She was so close now, hair but inches from his face. He had never told her, but he liked this colour on her. And he knew that she did not. Too many memories, she had said. Every time she looked in the mirror, she saw 'him', saw what he had turned her into; his own image in chains.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she said with a soft voice. And then, another pause. "I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now, but-"

"I don't want to see anyone else. Just you." The truth, for once. And though every word seemed to take more strength than he had left in him to say, he forced them out anyway. Everything he had wanted to tell her that morning, before the damn sedatives made a mess of things. "I hope you're okay?"

It was a silly way to phrase such an important question.

"No," she sighed. "I can't do this any more, Chris. I need to get out of that place. Something is-"

She released his hand, shook her head, missed the way his fingers reached for hers even after they were gone.

"Forget it."

The pain in his chest sharpened. She no longer trusted him. Not that he blamed her. After everything, after the fear and the ignorance...

"I'm sorry I questioned you," he said. His throat felt like sandpaper now. But reaching for water would steal precious seconds, and he did not know how many they had left. "I never meant to... I was scared, Jill. I didn't know what to do, I didn't..."

With a sigh, less loaded this time, she reached a hand out, smoothed his hair back in one gentle move before pressing her lips to his forehead.

Glimpses. That was all he got. But it was enough to show that this was not her, this was not his partner. A mask had fallen over her, one she had been unable to remove as easily as the one he had shot from her face. It tinted her world a foreign colour, made it seem different to her, and her to it. He did not understand it, and he somehow knew that neither did she. There was enough normality, enough familiarity to strike suspicion. How could someone seem so familiar yet so different at the same time? This did not feel like schizophrenia, did not feel like any emotional disturbance he knew. Schizophrenia was not so selective. No mental illness was.

"It's okay," she told him. He was about to protest, but she shushed him further, concern he had always teased shining in her eyes. "After...after my mom passed away, my father became...he became deeply depressed. It was difficult to deal with, I'm not going to lie. I would stay in the library after school, would stop by friends' houses on the way home just so I didn't have to face that, to see what he had become. The only thing harder than dealing with this shit yourself is watching someone you care about go through it."

But she had taken care of her father, he knew that much. She had realised her error and righted it while there was still time.

"I'm going to get you out of there," he promised. "Jill, I'm going to take care of you, the way I promised I would."

She smiled sadly. There was a painful lack of faith in her eyes.

"Yeah."

And just like that, the mask slid back in place, locked her away from him. So pessimistic, so resigned to a fate neither of them, seemed to truly understand.

There was no energy left in him for words.

The door opened, the tunes of hospital ambience seeping through the open space. Jill's eyes snapped up before his, and she recoiled, holding her hands to her chest. Sheva remained at the door, bouquet held before her. Both girls were speechless, but that seemed to be enough. Jill's eyes found his and she averted them quickly, rising to her feet.

Jill was never one to make mountains out of molehills, to invent suspicions or to jump to conclusions. But he was sure that the briefest flicker of hurt passed behind her eyes. She raised a hand to them, twitched and shook her head gently, as though willing something away.

"Sheva..." she whispered. Perhaps it was the guilt in his eyes. Guilt which had no reason, no foundation. But somehow, she saw the kiss upon his lips, sensed the change in the air between the former partners. She had always been good at picking up the little things.

He did not know why it affected her so, why she headed straight for the door, stumbling into the wall on her way.

"Get well soon," she said, her words slurred. "I-I'll be fine."

Then, she was gone.

**AN - Please review :).**


	7. Flight

**AN - **Major apologies for the wait, but you actually wouldn't believe it if I said how eventful life has been lately. I am still not confident with this, but I thought I would update with what I had and see how many people are still reading/are still interested and just go from there. I am also hoping to get my Revelations oneshot up sometime (a oneshot over a year in the making!) despite the fact that I seem to have lost a bit of what I had written.  
Anyway, here is the latest chapter of Host, and I hope you enjoy it! As always thank you for your support, and to those who continue to read!

* * *

**Host**

_**Chapter Six - **Flight_

**May 5, 2009. St. Anne's Hospital.**

He came to her again in the early hours of the afternoon, and he looked like hell. Perhaps hours out of hospital, definitely breaking rules she knew the BSAA would have placed upon him.

Jill did not know what to think. Her head was still a mess, each thought flitting into the spotlight and then dancing away before she could decipher its strange tongue. They never spoke to her in English any more, not even in any discernible language. Perhaps they had nothing to say at all and were merely singing her lack of sanity.

But still, she saw Sheva, saw the momentary guilt within his eyes. He had replaced her, had found a new partner, had-

'There's that paranoia again.' This voice was becoming the most annoying; the one that would make a sliver of sense amidst the chaos. It hurt to pay attention to it, to agree with it and try to do something about...well, anything.

"You really shouldn't be here," she said.

A light chuckle escaped him.

"You should know me better than that by now."

And she did. The voice told her so.

"If you're here to say you're sorry, forget it," she told him, a little more bitter than she had intended. "It makes no difference to me." A tune changed.

"But it does to me."

Chris sighed and moved closer. Perhaps it was his proximity that made her close her book, made her pay attention. It hurt that he was so close and yet she knew not what to do. Did she sit up? Did she move closer? Did she laugh like they used to together? There were so many things she wanted to feel, but her heart was decidedly numb today, her brain even more so.

"I-"

"Apologies are all you ever say to me these days," she interrupted. "And they are always followed by something that requires more. I just...I don't have the energy for that, not anymore. Just say your piece and..."

And what? Be gone? Leave her alone, to rot in this place?

"I can't do this any more," she whispered. It was that voice again, bringing with it a headache she feared would induce another psychotic episode. She had been good for a while, could not afford a relapse.

He seemed to shrug off her words, moved towards her as she rose to her feet next to her bed. Every movement seemed robotic, every sense dulled. She could barely feel the carpet against her bare feet.

"I don't need you to believe me," he said. His words were heavy, though she could not decipher the weight upon them. "I believe you, and that's all that matters now."

Feet seemed frozen to the spot as he drew closer, reaching into his pocket for something. It was an envelope, plain and white, and a little crumpled. A steady hand reached out the moment he offered it, eyes attempting to bore through the paper.

"If you won't let me say it, maybe..." There was something forced in his voice this time. He never was any good at lying.

Curiosity brought her hands to take it from him, the familiarity of the sharpness of his handwriting stinging her for a brief moment. It was a horribly familiar thing. Something she needed to let go of, needed to-

A rush of air brought her into his arms; she was unsure who had moved, only that suddenly they were together, and it felt good. Damn good.

"If you trust me..." he whispered, breath warm in her ear as a hand slid into hair she wished she had washed sooner - it was funny the places her mind drifted to these days. "I'll be there for you."

Something hard pressed against her scalp, beneath the gentle pressure of his fingertips. Instinct called her hand to move, but she stopped it. A wry smile was offered before he left, leaving her stunned in place with barely a breath upon her lips.

It was then that her fingers moved, pulling a long yellow clip from her hair; a thin pin, a little longer than she would use on-

Hastily, she ripped open the letter in her hands, dropping to sit on the edge of her bed as shreds of the envelope fell around her. Words of forgiveness darted before her eyes, but they felt empty and hollow. They made no sense, not to her. Their formation was good, save for a grammatical error or two, but they weren't words that she was used to reading from Chris.

Until she scanned that which the naked eye would never see. Letters suddenly leapt from the page; an old code they would use in the days of their dodging the spies of Umbrella, and in their days as partners within the BSAA - a code only the two of them knew.

**'Morning to,'** it read. **'East. Help. You want.'**

Even the message did not make sense in a classical way, but it was always how they would code messages. Nonsensical when they were always so prudent with grammar. Something no-one would think twice about.

And his words lingered, a suggestion seeping through the fog, easing into an abandoned avenue of her mind.

_"If you trust me..."_

* * *

**May 5, 2009. D.S.O. HQ [Location Classified]**

Hunnigan handed him the nondescript envelope in passing, barely smiling at him. He knew what it was before opening, but still waited until he was back in his office before delving into it.

_'I hope this is good news'._

Her handwriting was neat as always, and Leon smiled as he cast the note aside.

_Dr. Anna Hendricks, PhD._

Breath caught in his throat. The answer he had been seeking; but did he truly want to know? Some part of him had grown fond of Jill's doctor, but there was something about her that his senses did not trust. And they had yet to fail him.

Carefully tearing the paper, a few moments passed after he scanned the contents before dismay settled in. Hendrick's qualifications all checked out, and there was not a single fabrication regarding her employment. The criminal record check came back clean, links to various charities had proven valid; even the stakeout on her house had raised no questions nor cause for suspicion.

'Spidey sense failing you?' It was Claire's voice that asked this question, and he flung the papers to his desk in mild frustration.

The phone calls... Even her phone records showed nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, that particular phone could have been unregistered, but...

'Jill likes her,' he reminded himself. 'She trusts her. And she is a better judge of character than you ever were.'

The tension within his skull urged on another headache. What with Jill's suspicions, and the attack on Chris...could it all be linked? Was he missing something vital?

Strange though it was, it was then that his eyes flicked to his in-tray, to another brown envelope with a Post-It slapped onto the front.

_'I took the liberty...hope you don't mind. H.'_

Leon tore into this envelope with more tenacity, pulling out a thicker wad of paper. Familiar names were printed every four or five sheets, segments of files copied and pasted at leisure. A list of names at the end had nothing to them; clean checks, nothing to note. But the rest...

Three former Tricell staff members, two of whom were previously employed by Umbrella. On top of that, four further names were investigated during the crackdown on Tricell. All seven were found innocent, but the connection remained.

And each and every one of them was employed by the hospital in which Jill currently resided.

The vibration of his cell ran through his leg. He jumped, swearing violently as he reached for it, not checking the number before he answered.

"This better be important," he snarled, continuing to leaf through the document before him.

"Did your papers tell you what we already know?"

The voice was masked, pitch raised though not enough to disguise its femininity. And there was something familiar about it, something that rang more bells than was natural.

"Hendricks?" he surmised. He rose to his feet, peered out of the open blinds across his window.

"Not Hendricks," the voice said, calmly. "But we have our eye on her too."

There was nothing out of the ordinary outside; a vast expanse of land, another building and a high fence that was nigh impossible to scale, even with help.

"Look all you want, we're in the wires."

Of course. The damn webcam. He sighed as he settled down before it, not even bothering to disconnect or cover the equipment.

"What do you want?" he demanded. "I assume you're the one who has been sending the messages."

"You assume correctly. We don't care about your agenda, Kennedy. You don't need to worry about Hendricks. Everything is under control."

"You're calling me just to say that?"

Silence, for a heartbeat.

"If you care about Valentine, get her the hell out of St. Anne's."

Was it a threat against Jill? Or one against him? He chose his words carefully now. There was nothing to suggest that this voice, and whoever 'they' were, were enemies of their cause. At the very least, they appeared to have a common concern for Jill.

"Why? Is she in danger?"

"Get her out of there. Or we will. Tick tock."

* * *

**May 6, 2009. St. Anne's Hospital.**

They had checked her room once since lights out at 10pm. She made every effort to appear placid and sleeping, had even hidden her medication that night so that she would not accidentally drift into a slumber. Add to that the three cups of coffee she consumed before bed, and everything was going to plan.

At 1:30am, Jill finally emerged from the covers, tiptoeing to the door to hear a silent hallway on the other side. With one hand, she twisted the pin, the other pressed to the door. Picking a lock with a hairpin was a feat most considered a show for the movies, but she had achieved it once or twice, once with her old partner as an audience. Part of her cursed him for not gifting her with something a little easier to use, but at the same time she thanked him for bringing her anything at all.

Her heart beat steadily in her throat, the pounding of it threatening to drown out sounds she desperately needed to listen out for. But there was nothing outside her room that would impede her progress.

The feet that slapped against tiles were still bare, so extra care was taken to dull her footsteps. Voices laughed and joked at the end of the hallway, guards far too preoccupied by what appeared to be a home video show. Even so, she ducked beneath the window, pressed herself against the wall, almost crawling towards the end of the MaxSec wing.

It was here that the first flaw in her plan became evident. The door was always locked, MaxSec guards being the only personnel who could open and close the divide. She remained crouched by the corner, fear growing as she contemplated just how she would break through this lock. There was no way in hell she had all the equipment she needed on her. Pyjamas and a hairpin were hardly the tools to a daring escape.

It was futile, all of it. Why had she believed even for a second that she could pull this off?

The clock in the guards' room read 1:45 now. She was running out of time.

The yellow light turned to red almost instantly, silently flashing a warning against white walls.

The voices dropped their humour, both guards rose to their feet.

"Yellow ward," one of them sighed. "Rear sensors tripped."

"Probably a raccoon again," another sighed. "We oughtta start setting traps."

The door at Jill's side opened, and she froze, holding her breath lest she betray her position.

"Will it really take both of us?"

"MaxSec is locked down," said the other. "It can do without us for five minutes. Damn light's gonna give me a headache."

Jill found herself praising the lack of intelligence found in St. Anne's security staff. They walked mere inches from her, and yet failed to notice her crouched in the darkness. She threw her arm out almost instantly, fingers caught between the door and its frame as they let it close behind them, assuming it would lock. She waited until the footsteps faded away before she pushed it open just enough to slip through.

The television continued to play, the light still flashing above her head. Security monitors showed the absent guards approaching the main entrance to Yellow ward, dawdling seemingly without a care in the world.

The door on the other side of the guards' room was always open. It led to nothing but the daycare wing and the doctors' offices; no need to lock it down at night, not when the vending machine was on the other side.

Jill rose to her feet once the red light was nothing more than a memory. It was only a short dash from here to the main exit, but she knew better than that. Instead, she turned off the hallway, towards the new wing. There were many fire exits in this direction, not to mention a maintenance exit with a lock so old the thought of picking it felt like a waste of time.

'Please be there, Chris,' she pleaded internally. She would not know what to do if she broke through the other side only to find herself alone. And once again she hated how dependant on others she had become.

One more corner, one more stretch of hallway...

She froze in her tracks, watched the door she needed close behind the last person she wanted to see.

Dr. Hendricks seemed surprised to see her, but that was the point; she wasn't supposed to be here, there was no way she had found her way here by accident. All of her sins, suddenly laid out before them both.

"Taking a walk?" the doctor asked.

Jill found herself unable to reply, throat too dry for speech.

"Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you escaped from your room," Hendricks continued, slightly amused. "You've picked more difficult locks in your time. But where did you get the tools?"

"Get out of my way," she warned, finding a little assertiveness within a meek mind.

"With pleasure," Hendricks said. And to the patient's surprise, the doctor stepped out of the way, even gestured to the closed door. "Though how is it that you plan to open this door? I guarantee the lock is far more sophisticated than that on your room. A hair clip would hardly be sufficient."

Jill glanced to the clip against the white sleeve of her pyjamas. Sheepishness was never an emotion she found herself host to, but she felt positively helpless in that moment. Where was the fight? Where was the woman who would have knocked Hendricks out cold by now?

Hendricks reached around her neck, unhooking a lanyard that was new to her eyes.

"You're going to need this," she said, handing it over, no questions or conditions.

Jill eyed it suspiciously, but took it anyway.

"You're helping me?"

"No, you're robbing me," the doctor said, winking so surreptitiously Jill barely noticed. "I was exiting this door when you knocked me out cold and stole my key card. You used it to go through the next door at the end of the hallway on the right, through the office there and jump out of the window. Of course I was unconscious during this last part so I will have no knowledge of the act."

For the first time since the lock of her door gave beneath the pressure of her fingers, her heartbeat began to slow.

"But you have to hurry. The security cameras currently aren't working in this wing, and the guards will return soon to notice this."

It was her. The tripped alarm. But how did?

She was working with Chris, she had to be.

"Thank you." They were the last works she spoke to the doctor, before her fist bruised against her cheek and her elbow connected with the back of her head when she began to fall.

_"Harder, faster. This is not good enough!"_

Bile rose from the pit of her stomach, but she swallowed it down. The walls began to tremble but she fought back the memories, fought back the psychosis. And the silence that continued on the other side of the door helped to comfort a trembling soul.

Carefully, she fumbled with one hand along the wall, the darkness taking some time to adjust to. How was she to know when the hallway truly ended, and where the turn-off was?

Was it two am already? Had Chris already given up on her and left? Was he really there at all? Was his letter just something she had misinterpreted?

A desperate hand pressed a little too hard upon one door, and it cracked but a little, dim light leaking out into the hallway. As urgent her objective, curiosity brought her to push, to ease the door open enough to glimpse inside.

But a momentary view of the walls was enough to stir nightmares within her. The clinical white, the tile, the mirror. Every nightmare she had suffered of late suddenly became frighteningly real.

"I'm not crazy," she muttered. "I'm not..."

Strange though it was, this realisation offered little comfort to her. And the walls throbbed again, shadows crept. It was too much.

Stay, remain here. It's not so bad. This was her home now. This was where she belonged.

She released the door and ran, perhaps trying to outrun the shadows, to outrun her fear. Her body collided heavily with another wall and she felt along it, reaching out for the door Hendricks had told her to take.

_"You think you could ever be anything without me? You would be nothing if not for me. You would be dead!"_

"I would be me," she muttered. "I would be safe, I would be sane."

Grasping fingers found the handle and she slipped into the confines of the office, crashing almost instantly into a potted plant. The leaves twisted, seemed to reach for her.

'Not today.' She was so close, she couldn't fail now.

The shadows faded back behind her as she approached the window, as she unlatched it and hauled it open. The drop was minimal, and the grass broke her fall. And there was nothing on the other side but a sizeable plain of grass before a private road - the hospital was not isolated but it was hardly in the middle of the city either.

Street lamps cast yellow light onto the neighbourhood; a suburban area devoid of any residential housing. And all was quiet, not even the chatter of animals sounding in the night.

'He's not here,' she realised. Was she even on the east side? How was she to know which was was east? She didn't have a damn compass.

Suddenly, the whirring of tires sounded down the road and she spun fearfully. Headlights blinded her, and every muscle in her body tensed, though her feet seemed rooted to the ground.

"Jill!"

She could not see him, but she heard his voice, ran to it as though it were a lifeline. Barely a foot from the car, a strong arm reached out and pulled her inside, leaning over her to slam shut the door.

"Go!" Chris yelled at the driver, and the car pulled away faster than was legal, before she had a chance to secure her belt.

But suddenly, fear dissipated. She made it. How, she was not sure, but she made it! Breathing hitched, shuddering as she settled into a new state of mind. And Chris never once took his eyes off her, seemed to breathe just as heavily. Behind the wheel, Sheva stared intently ahead, leaving the hospital far out of view.

She had made it.

**AN - Please review :).**


	8. Free

**AN - **Fillah, fillah night. Yup, filler ahead. Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter - I'm glad that some are still interested in this! Words of support and encouragement mean a lot so by all means keep them coming! I hope you enjoy the this chapter and I hope the wait won't be too long for the next.

* * *

**Host**

_**Chapter Seven - **Free_

**May 6, 2009.**

The gentle hum of the engine eased her into consciousness, seatbelt tugging gently across her waist. In the excitement of the previous night, the new concept of freedom had almost slipped her mind.

The eyes next to her turned away from the road for a brief moment.

"Good morning," Chris greeted, smile upon his voice.

Jill groaned groggily, waiting for the world around her to swim into focus. They appeared to be on the highway now, driving as casually as though this were a simple road trip.

Memories floated back, of orders to strip in the back seat and change into clothing that waited. Soon after, Sheva had pulled over in a somewhat secluded area and she was herded into another vehicle - the grey station wagon they currently made tracks in - before their friend was gone with the promise to abandon her pyjamas somewhere in the opposite direction, and they were on the road.

Sleep had claimed her not long after, and were it not for the watch upon her former partner's wrist she would not have known that ten am had only recently passed.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "Somewhere outside Roanoke."

Roanoke?

Truth be told, she did not care where they were or where they were going. The greater the distance between them and that damn place, the better.

"So what's the plan?"

A sharp breath escaped the driver; an involuntary chuckle.

"Getting you out of there, that was the plan," he said. "Didn't think we'd get that far, let alone what to do next."

Concern edged its way into her mind. Without a plan, without a destination... They had to stop somewhere, eventually. They could not run forever.

"Shouldn't we head back to Richmond?" she suggested. "The BSAA-"

The set of his jaw cut her words short. The BSAA knew nothing about this. It was just them. How many times had she chastised him for not thinking a plan through, for barging headfirst into ideas without thought or consideration?

'Without a plan, we are harder to track down,' she knew. 'So long as we keep moving, we remain unpredictable.'

"We can't go back there. Tricell will be hunting both of us, and the authorities will be hunting you. Should only be local though; we'll stay out of State, out of their jurisdiction."

They had always talked about a vacation, about a road trip if they could not afford a plane ticket. Strange how it was these circumstances that had forced them into it. Yet somehow, she felt safer with him, did not care much about the lack of plan or purpose. If their past had taught them anything it was that together they were unstoppable.

* * *

Hunnigan was waiting in his office when he arrived, coffee still warm in his hands.

"Please tell me you had nothing to do with this," she said, sigh laced through her words.

Truthfully, he had not a clue what she spoke of. He had little to do with anything yet, having only recently dragged himself out of bed, through a shower and the local coffee shop, and into the building.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific than that."

Hunnigan raised an eyebrow, but her expression relaxed when he did not bite.

"They're keeping it out of the media for now, but Jill disappeared from St. Anne's last night."

Leon set his coffee down, didn't take the time to find his way to the right side of his desk, or to a chair at all. Perched on the end of the wooden frame, he silently demanded more information.

"Dr. Hendricks was attacked in the hallway a little before two am, her key card was stolen. A quick sweep of the rooms found Jill's bed empty. Security staff searched the nearby area, but there was no sign of her. No way she got away on foot; someone had to be helping her."

Helping or dragging? Eyes shot to his web cam, thoughts dropping to the cellphone at his belt. He could not bring it in him to rejoice that she was free of that place. Just who's hands had she found her way into?

"Keep it quiet," he said. "No media, no law enforcement. Let me deal with this; I'll contact the BSAA, get a few agents on it."

"As you wish."

She rose to leave, smoothing down her sleek grey skirt, but an afterthought seemed to keep her behind.

"I trust you, Leon," she said. "But you need to be careful on this one. I can only do so much for you."

Anger flushed through him as she left, but none was directed towards her. Most of it found its way back to him, for not trusting the voice, not believing that they would dare to-

As though on cue, the phone at his belt buzzed and he wasted no time in answering.

"Congratulations, Kennedy," the voice said. "Didn't think you had it in you."

"Where is she?" he demanded, in front of the web cam before he could think. "The hell have you done with her?"

Silence.

"Answer me!"

"I was congratulating you on your actions. When we arrived she was already gone."

The fear changed, morphed into something unfamiliar and frightening. If she was not with them, if she was not with him...then where the hell was she?

"We have eyes on Redfield too," the voice said, changing to a pensive tone. "He has been off our radar for the last twelve hours. Perhaps this is no coincidence."

'Dammit, Chris.' Cursing his comrade would get them nowhere. On the one hand Jill was safe, but on the other... Somehow, his faith in Redfield grew but a little. If he had succeeded in slipping away under surveillance the D.S.O. had been unable to pick up (perhaps they were even tapping into the D.S.O.-operated surveillance networks), then perhaps she was safer with him than anyone else. They all knew the lengths he would go to to protect her...and the lengths to which he had already been.

"Perhaps it's time to bring you into the loop, Agent Kennedy."

* * *

Mama's Fry and Waffle House was a typical roadside diner, with prices to match and a mouth-watering array of breakfast options. It was Jill's rumbling stomach that had brought them there, but Chris's keen eye and willingness to deviate from their unplanned route that had brought them to a small booth in the corner.

Maple syrup and vanilla ice cream; perhaps the tastiest breakfast she had consumed in years, and the manner with which she attacked it reflected this.

"Slow down," Chris warned her warmly. "I don't have anything for indigestion."

Sheepishly, she licked syrup from her lips and reached for the Cola that accompanied the food.

It felt good to see her eat so healthily. Her skin was a sallow shade, hair almost brittle, nails chewed down to the skin. So often had he convinced himself that she was better off in that place, how wrong he knew he was now.

She baulked at every sudden noise or movement, seemed paranoid to the fraying of her nerves.

"I'm sorry we had to stop," she said, scraping ice cream to one side with her fork.

"Don't be," he urged. "We need to eat."

Did they knew she was gone yet? Of course they did. But were they looking for her? The news channel that played on the TV above the counter displayed nothing out of the ordinary; even the newspaper he had acquired from the waitress sang no song of her escape.

"I was thinking," he said. "We should head north - New York. I have family and friends there, people who will know to keep quiet."

Jill remained silent, only nodding obediently.

"Or we could head south to Florida, if you think a vacation would be better."

A shrug. A woman once so passionate, now indifferent even to life itself it seemed. Part out of despair, part out of sympathy, he reached over to place a hand over hers.

"Don't say it," she pleaded, before words could roll onto his tongue. "If you do anything for me, don't lie."

"I'm not going to lie." A sigh accompanied his claim and she closed her eyes against it.

"I'm sorry. I guess..." The momentary silence seemed chosen and she smiled before she spoke again. "Thank you, for getting me out of there. I can't believe it took me so long to say that."

Chris squeezed the hand that he held and returned her smile. It was nothing; he knew that she she did too. It was just what they did for one another, what they always had.

"How's Claire?"

"She's fine. You know her, she bounces back. And she holds no ill will if that's what you mean."

"I never meant to hurt her."

"We know that."

Her eyes had turned back to her half-eaten waffle now, a look of sadness upon her.

"She helped me, you know," he said. Perhaps it would help her to know. "Who do you think packed your bag? Who do you think got that car for us?"

Fork slipped from her fingers, and her attention was his again. The disbelief in her eyes shook him but he simply laughed cut away a sizeable mouthful of his own breakfast.

"You're the victim here, Jill. Nobody is going to desert you for that."

She had wanted out of that place; that was something. Truthfully, as Sheva drove them round the hospital, he wondered if she would show at all, partly expected her not to. When the headlights found her looking frantically around he had not quite known what to say or what to do. And now that she was here with him, he was equally as stumped. His previous attempts at helping those close to them only exposed them to more harm. What did he truly know about being a hero?

* * *

It was barely dark when the door to their motel room opened before them. It was a small place, no frills, but it had a bed and that was all they needed. Even a warm shower was optional at this point but it had that too.

Half a dozen coffee breaks through the day and a break at a small town on the edge of the state had failed to widen Chris's eyes and in the end it was only her insistence that he stop that brought him to the compromise of stopping just over the state line. She was in no fit state to drive, and he was halfway to an accident after almost forty eight hours of sleeplessness.

Jill headed straight for the bathroom, tearing open the bag that Claire had packed for her. There were enough clothes for a week or so, feminine products and even a couple boxes of hair dye and coloured contact lenses (she always did take the 'undercover' thing too far). Slowly, she changed into soft new pyjamas before joining Chris.

Yawns fractured heavy breathing, body slumped uncomfortably in his seated position on the edge of the bed. He barely even noticed her return.

"Get some rest," he said, almost slurring his words. "I'll keep watch."

A frown and quiet sigh was not enough to point out the flaw in his plan.

"I'm not the one that needs sleep. They don't know where we are; hell, I don't even know where we are. I can't drive with my psychosis and you will kill us both if you try to in this state."

He said nothing, but she felt his reply. Some things never changed.

Light steps brought her to his bed, to the mattress that she clambered onto, reaching for his shoulders with outstretched hands. He fought a little at first, but lacked the energy to truly shake off her gesture. And from the state of the muscle she felt beneath a light touch she could tell that it was needed, perhaps even welcomed.

She barely knew how to comfort these days, barely knew how to use her hands for anything other than taking life. But it seemed that she succeeded in kneading just a little life back into him and soon he rolled his shoulders back into her hands, a quiet groan escaping his throat.

"You always were too tense," she teased. Laughter followed, and he nodded.

"I never understood how you remained so calm through everything."

"Never calm, just controlled."

He reached a hand up to cover hers, stopping her motions gently. And he turned, smiling through his fatigue.

"You were always the better agent," he said. His words found a place deep within her that felt unusually good. "I had the right skill set, but never the right attitude. Not until I met you."

Always on edge, always challenging authority, even in S.T.A.R.S. - he was the wild card, and she the cool flame. He was everything she was not, and yet everything she was at the same time. They were attuned to one another almost on a cellular level. It seemed that fate had brought them together...and fate always made sure that they never got too close.

"Sleep," she urged. "No-one is coming for you tonight."

"And what about you?"

A sigh.

"They come for me every night. Can't stop that. But that's my problem, not yours."

"I should have made it mine."

"Chris..."

"No. I'm sorry, Jill. You needed me and I ignored everything and pretended it was okay. And that wasn't right."

"You're here now." And he was, and she did not dwell on the supposed crimes he charged himself for. "I can't trust myself these days. Understand how important it is that I am trusting you."

It was the most honest she had been with anyone in a long time.

There seemed to be more words upon his tongue, but he swallowed them again when she moved, allowing space for him to fall down. He barely seemed conscious as he lay back, not bothering to change out of his clothing.

They say the first night is the hardest, away from familiarity. It was true of her return from Africa. She could barely sleep in that damn hospital, even found the inside of Chris's apartment strange. Comfort felt wrong, smiles and care felt false. Perhaps they were, for a while. But Chris fought sleep until nature overpowered his senses. Even half-unconscious, he sought to protect her.

And maybe she was wrong for believing that he couldn't.

**AN - Please review :)**


	9. Darkness Comes

**AN** - Sorry for the delay! I just kept adding and adding to this and it never seemed to end! As always, thank you for the support and the reviews, and I hope this was worth the wait!

* * *

**Host**

_**Chapter Eight - **Darkness Comes_

**May 7, 2009.**

A sticky heat permeated the air when he woke, sunlight streaming through a small gap above the curtains. It was a little after eleven am and every ache that he presumed had alleviated over the last twenty four hours was there to wish him a not-so-good morning.

Chris never was a morning person, least of all when the night before had seen him unfit to even change out of his jeans before sleep claimed him.

"I wondered if you were ever going to wake."

Jill sounded a hell of a lot more alert than he, even appeared to be on her feet, the rustle of a towel against damp hair surrounding her words. There was something startling yet incredibly soothing about hearing her voice so early in the day.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he righted himself, limbs feeling heavier as he dragged them into a seated position. "No idea what happened."

"You pushed yourself too hard, that's what happened," she accused. He had not the strength in him to argue, not when he knew that she was right.

When he raised his head and his eyes, a sight awaited him that he had not quite expected. The hair that emerged from beneath the white towel was not the golden shade he had found her with. It was not quite the shade he remembered her for, but it was close. Perhaps it made her appear a little washed out, what with the new pallor of her skin, but it was a familiarity that made things a little more comfortable.

She noticed his staring and brought a nervous hand to ruffle damp hair.

"It was starting to get darker at the roots anyway," she said with a light blush to her cheeks. "I thought it might help to go back. They're looking for a blonde."

Somehow, he did not believe that was the reason.

"Always preferred brunettes anyway."

She laughed, and for the first time since her return he felt that it was genuine, that it came from the heart and not merely the lungs.

"Still cheapening moments, I see." With a more comfortable stride to her step she found the edge of his bed, seemed to contemplate it for a moment before she sat upon it. It buckled only a little beneath her weight.

"You didn't sleep last night, did you?" he asked.

"I tried. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't."

A weak smile attempted to soften the impact of her words. So worried about him sleeping when she couldn't even catch a few hours for herself.

Chris pulled his legs up, moved closer to her. The arms that braced her against the mattress seemed to tremble ever so slightly, he could see that now. Was it the lack of medication? So many things had gone unconsidered when planning their great escape. Reckless, as always. But he never meant to be reckless with her. It always just kind of...happened.

"I used to enjoy sleeping," she said, solemnly. "Well, I used to enjoy lying awake in bed. He never bothered with the P30 at night, you see. Just used to lock me in my cell with a tray of food and bottle of water. It was the only time I ever had my body to myself. Some nights I'd catalogue the bruises. Others I'd cry. Eventually I just used to stare at the ceiling and wonder when it would all be over. If, after his plan succeeded and the world was gone, he'd finally let me go."

Her words stung like tacks in his lungs. The mere thought of her these days was enough to make him glad beyond words that Wesker was out of the picture. And he had never had facts to attatch to the hatred, just the knowledge that she had come back to him a little different than she had left.

"If you want to walk out of here, you can," he wanted to let her know. "I'm not stopping you."

Jill laughed quietly.

"That's not what I'm saying. I don't trust myself to be alone right now anyway. Don't trust what I'd do. I...I still don't know why it was Claire I took the knife to and not myself. I've felt that was coming for a long time."

There were no words, nothing he could offer to this except the fear in his eyes and silent yet heartfelt plea that she never try anything like that. The honesty behind the facts whispered to him that she would not. If she felt capable enough to admit so much, perhaps she felt capable enough to ask for help when she needed it. There was no way he was failing on his watch, not this time.

"I never said thank you," she said. "For saving me. I was too caught up in what was happening and wishing that you hadn't bothered. He made me everything I was not. Never once let me forget the fact that my blood would bring about the apocalypse. Laughed as I tried and failed to stop him. He got arrogant. Obviously forgot how damn stubborn you are."

He laughed with her this time, moving so that he was beside her on the edge of the mattress.

"You never need to thank me. Ever. God, Jill, I'd go to the ends of the Earth for you, but I hope you know that by now. And I know you'd do the same for me; all that shit was because of me. No matter how many times I thank you it will never be enough, and it will never make up for what you went through because of that. So just...let me share in this. Don't go through it alone. I can't promise I won't fuck up this time but I'll try my damned hardest."

There was something in her eyes when she turned to look at him but it faded quickly, drowned by pessimism and self-deprecation. And the words hung on the tip of his tongue again, the ones that would change their friendship forever. The ones he had sworn he would one day say to her that night all those years ago; the ones he was starting to believe would never be right nor appropriate to say.

"Let's do something normal today," she requested. "All the tests and the tiptoeing...it never really felt like I was truly home."

* * *

The 'IT specialst' was somewhat of a recluse, it seemed. Every inquiry into his whereabouts was met with varying versions of 'Who? Oh, him! Who the hell knows?'. Though Leon's journey was not lacking in information. It seemed that this guy was not exactly an IT specialist, more a genius with everything from a pen to a soldering iron. Creator of pretty much every unique piece of technology to emerge from the BSAA.

When his target was finally within sight, it was with a mug of coffee before a laptop displaying not the research data he had expected but rather a very outdated horror movie.

"You got an appointment?" he asked, not even looking up from the screen. His voice was high-pitched and almost offensive to the ears, carrying an undertone of boredom, as though whatever the agent may have to say it surely wouldn't be worth his time.

"Actually, I do," Leon said as the door closed behind him.

That was enough to tear the eyes away from his visual feast.

"Huh? Sorry, I never actually read those slips." It was barely noticeable, but his eyes dropped to the badge that hung from Leon's belt - and the same dismay that he had seem too many times in this building fell into them. "Government, huh?"

"Don't take that the wrong way," he said. The BSAA's disdain for the US government was no secret; they did not like external involvement in their crises, even if that involvement was US-sanctioned and involved American citizens. This frustrated more than it did not bother.

"And what does the government want with me? If you're after data, the Kijuju investigation is our baby and none of your damn business."

Actually, it was the UN's baby. But Leon thought it unwise to point this out.

"I'm here about Jill Valentine," he said instead. "I trust you know that she went missing lass than forty-eight hours ago?"

There was a change in the specialist's demeanour.

"Whatever I know it won't help you find her," he said stubbornly. "Jill's a good friend, so wave your warrants all you want, it'll do you no good here."

"Then that's something we both have in common."

Silence. The man seemed to contemplate this, but apparently decided that it was just not worth it. Paranoid to the bone, he evidently lived up to his reputation.

"You worked with her during the Veltro incident," Leon said. "You saved her life, Parker Luciani's too. You uncovered O'Brian's game, somehow pulled your ass out of there and survived. You stayed with R&D at the main headquarters in London, skipped out on your duties to assist in the search for her in 2006. And when you heard she was back you transferred to NA, got yourself a role on the project. I know who you are, Quint Cetcham, I know all about your past and your friendship with Jill. I don't know this through espionage or wire-tapping, I know because she told me and the things she left out, Chris filled in. They trust me that much, and they need you to trust me just the same."

That seemed to get him. Hostility seemed to ebb away as all points were considered. Jill did not trust lightly, yet here were two men she had chosen to, two men evidently with the power to help her.

"If any of this gets back to your bosses, I will know," Quint threatened.

"It won't."

Another warning look was thrown before the movie was shut down and pages of script were brought up on the screen. For a man so comical in appearance, he sure could pull off a threatening demeanour.

"Ok, so we're still working through the encryptions. Most of the data is cleared, we're just getting bits and pieces from all over the place so it's taking some time to slot it together in the right order. Kinda like a jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces."

Leon could not make sense of the numbers and pictures, and only a few of the words jumped out.

"There's a lot of stuff about Uroboros and Jill, but you already know that; we filed as much of it as we could as soon as we found it. There is even surveillance footage that...well, you're probably better off not seeing some of that, but there was more than enough to prove her innocence just on the surface."

"This footage..."

"Mostly lab-based, fitness tests and stuff. Some...it's pretty brutal. The psychopath used her as a punching bag, filmed the entire surgery to- I'm sorry man, you really don't want to be hearing this."

Perhaps nobody wanted to hear it. And maybe that was the problem. Too quick to assume she would bounce back from this the way she always did, when none of them had every lived through anything like this...when none of them probably would.

"He upped the dosage to stop her from fighting back, you know. She damn near escaped twice. Never tried again after that, I don't know if it was the drug or... She's going to be okay. Wherever she is, she has Chris and ain't nobody fought for her like he did. They got that on camera too."

"Did the data say anything about her, about what he did to her?"

"Uh...just fairly standard stuff, nothing that didn't come out in the inquiry. Used her antibodies to stabilise Uroboros, the P30 tests. There wasn't much else, thankfully."

It was a small mercy. But the information his mysterious stalker had seen fit to enlighten him with urged him to push further, to believe that there was something unseen and insidious beneath it all.

"Was there anything else? Any unrelated projects going on at the time? I'm grasping at straws here, I want to know everything, even if it has nothing to do with her."

Cetcham paused for a moment, resting his right hand briefly on the lid of his laptop before closing it and leaning back in his chair.

"There are slivers of a new project coming through," he said. "We're still working on decoding that one, but it seems Wesker launched it quite recently. Whatever it was, it didn't see completion before he bit it. Didn't even get out of the initial stages."

There was silence for a few moments as Leon considered this. How much of it overlapped with the stranger's claims?

"You know how the P30 worked, right?" Cetcham asked. "It was more of a performance enhancer than anything else. However, a major side effect seemed to be that it put subjects in a state comparable to sleepwalking. Wesker tested it on a handful of people before he began administering it to Jill - they didn't fight back like she did. Somehow, she was aware of everything and fought to snap out of the 'sleeping' state - control was only possible so long as that state was maintained. But..."

He flinched as he apparently considered his next words.

"Wesker tried to induce in her a state of hopelessness, one where the better option was to let go and not fight. Seems he did his research on Monarch mind control, used similar principals. I don't know what she went through, but given the means and the end...Schizophrenia isn't too far-fetched an illness for her to emerge with. Perhaps part of her doesn't believe this is over. She'll keep running, maybe she'll even try to run from Chris eventually."

"You think this has anything to do with the new project?" Leon asked, hoping his skin did not reflect the feeling in his stomach.

"I don't think so. I think he was done with her. Got his money's worth, wore his toy out. But this would have to be something that overlapped the Uroboros plan; Albert Wesker did not factor failure into his plan. It would be global."

The only small comfort in the fact was that if Wesker had indeed succeeded, global could mean as little as a thousand people.

Ignoring the growing sense of unease within his chest, Leon rose to his feet.

"Just...let me know if you find anything else."

* * *

It was warm out, a light breeze bringing comfort and the occasional goosebump. The park was quiet though they were far from alone, joggers, dog walkers, playing children and the occasional family and couples picnicking on the grass.

"The hell did you find this thing?" Jill heaved as she flung the Frisbee hard in his direction.

"Didn't find it," Chris said. "Bought it. Gift shop. Not even a dollar."

"You're so pathetic Redfield."

"Want me to take it back?"

"Just throw the damn thing."

He marvelled at how quickly she reacted to the bright yellow object zooming towards her. Her reflexes were always good but it had been so long since they had challenged one another in such a way.

"Go long!"

He did, but still missed the piece of plastic by a mile.

"Damn, this isn't as fun as I remember it being."

"That's because I used to let you win."

A smile appeared in response to a challenging glare. Perhaps she had let him win more often than he had won himself, but she had never complained about the bragging rights he had claimed in the aftermath of their battles. Always cooled with the reward of a beer and pat on the back, he had never realised just how hard she tried sometimes to make him happy.

The Frisbee was retrieved swiftly and he through it low, barely landing a metre from her feet.

At that moment, a dog dashed before them, drawn to the bright colours and fast momentum. It was a Doberman, dark and strong, with a curious nose that it pressed over the surface of the object.

"Hunter!" yelled a young girl, leash in hand, as she dashed towards the scene. "I am so sorry, he's the nosiest damn dog in the world."

Hunter turned at the sound of her voice, panting happily. He was a beautiful boy, tail undocked and ears uncropped. Quite small, perhaps he was not yet fully grown and seemed more of a family dog (perhaps a bit of a mutt) than anything else. But the sudden tense of Jill's frame was as noticeable to him as the yellow Frisbee. But why? They had seen many Dobermans in the years since their first encounter with Umbrella's test dogs and she had shown no fear nor hatred of them.

"It's alright," he assured the young girl, quickly moving to retrieve the Frisbee and kneeling before the dog. "He's a handsome boy."

"Handsome and completely dopey," the girl laughed. "Somehow adores the colour yellow."

"Take it," Chris said, watching the dog's eyes follow the Frisbee as he waved it. "We were about to leave anyway, it'll only find its way into the trash."

"Thank you! You hear that, Hunter? Ready for catch?"

The dog bounded up and down in the seconds before she took the object and threw it gently. More words of thanks were exchanged, but she was running off in chase of her pet in no time (dopey indeed, he seemed to have caught the Frisbee but had not a clue what to do with it).

When he turned, an empty space screamed at him. The grass not even dented from her presence, his companion had gone.

'Shit.'

And then he saw her, the back of her hoodie, head down low as her feet took her quickly away from the scene, away from the park even.

"Jill!"

He was fast, but she picked up her pace, stumbling into a light crowd before the rest area. When he found himself on the other side of the group, there was no sign of her. Even so, he pushed forward, dashing past the small bricked buildings that housed the rest rooms. Trees lined the area, casting shadows even in daylight. It was not a forest, but was as close to one as they were likely to find in the city. Wild branches, damp grass that had not been cut in some time, leaves overhead rustled by passing birds and squirrels. It would have been rather beautiful had he not been chasing a frightened woman between the thick trunks.

'There's a scenario I never thought I'd find myself in.'

For a moment, he stopped to rest, listening to the sounds that surrounded him. Between the wind and birdcall, it was difficult to hear much, but his ears were trained to pick up the slightest hint of human movement. Her breathing was rather clumsy, the sound of fabric against bark alerting him to her presence. And flighty as she was, she took off before he reached her position. But he was ready for her this time, grabbing her wrist as it flailed behind her and attempting to pull her close.

"No, no, let me go!" she squealed as his hands found her arms now. "Stop it, stop it!"

"Jill, it's me. I'm not going to hurt you but I won't let you go."

"No." Her pleas seemed to lose energy, through realisation of resignation he did not know. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you."

Her knees gave way and they both crashed into the ground, his back slamming roughly into a nearby tree. As they slid down the bark, he pulled her as close to him as he could achieve, back to his chest, hoping that somehow his more controlled breathing would help ease hers.

The body in his arms went limp, head falling forward, feet slipping against the dirt. No longer did her hands attempt to push his arms away. He could see now the blood against his forearm and reached for her hands. A multitude of minor cuts lined them, some deep enough to draw blood.

'You're in over your head,' the red streaks told him. 'She's hurting herself; she's fucking bleeding!'

But she had suffered worse, and the rational side of him knew it. He had made a promise to her and to himself, and there was no way in hell he was breaking it, not now, not ever.

"What happened?" he asked in a low whisper. Sobs still wracked her body but they were dry and restraint was beginning to slip back into the cadence of her breath.

"Fucking dogs."

"That's not what I asked."

"What the hell do you want me to say?"

"The truth."

The truth. Something nobody had cared much about since the clearing of her name. Somehow it seemed to settle her; fingers even began to hold his hand, rather than claw against it.

"Nightmares. I'm sure he used to lace my food with drugs; sometimes I'd refuse to eat and sleep would be a little more pleasant. I'd watch them tear Joseph apart over and over again. And you... Shit, I was told to find reasons for the visions, the delusions, for every fucking thought that enters my mind. I don't care about the reasons, Chris, I just don't want to look around and see everyone's face rotting every time I face a trigger."

She seemed so small against him now. Was it his increase in size or the way she held herself? Alternating between startled mouse and stubborn woman, he wasn't sure which side of her was the true side and which the response.

"It's the meds, isn't it?" she asked tearfully. "I can't cope without them."

"Let's just get back on the road," he soothed. "We'll drive a few more hours, find a motel for the night and rest. It's probably sleep deprivation, that's all."

"God, Chris, are you really that naïve?"

He was not, but it was his job to hide that from her, to be her strength where she lacked her own.

"I prefer to call it optimism."

**AN - Please review :)**


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